THE  PSALMS 


^30183? 


in.    THE    PSALMS ; 


The  problems  connected  with  the  Psalter  are  endless,  but  those 
most  assiduously  discussed  during  the  past  twenty-five  years 
may  be  grouped  under  four  heads:  (1)  the  historical  question 
of  the  origin  of  the  Psalter  as  a  collection,  (2)  the  question  of 
the  origin  of  the  individual  psalms,  (3)  the  literary  question  of 
the  nature  of  Hebrew  poetry,  with  its  necessary  accompaniment 
of  problems  in  textual  criticism,  and  (4)  the  exegetical  question 
concerning  the  speaker  in  the  psalms,  whether  the  "I"  of  the 
Psalter  has  an  individual  or  a  collective  reference.  The  scholar 
who  can  answer  these  questions  successfully  must  be  possessed 
of  an  historical  sense,  a  literary  feeling,  and  an  exegetical  tact 
of  a  very  high  order.  Since  the  psalms  are  hymns,  and  as  such 
for  the  most  part  deal  only  with  generalized  or  idealized  experi- 
ences, the  problem  of  their  date  and  place  in  the  development  of 
the  religion  of  Israel  is  a  singularly  complicated  one.  The  dating 
of  the  psalms  must  rest  on  established  dates  in  the  rest  of  Hebrew 
literature,  and  one  who  undertakes  the  criticism  of  the  Psalter 
must  have  a  very  clear  and  well-balanced  conception  of  the 
problems  of  the  religion  of  Israel.  Without  it  the  attempt  to 
discuss,  for  instance,  the  tradition  of  the  Davidic  authorship 
of  the  psalms,  or  even  their  pie-exilic  origin,  would  lead  to  no 
secure  results.  Again,  the  question  of  the  nature  of  Hebrew 
poetry  and  its  bearing  upon  textual  criticism  is  one  of  the  most 
vexed  questions  of  Old  Testament  study.  Few  combine  a  gift 
for  textual  criticism  with  a  fine  literary  sense.  Finally,  the 
problem  of  the  nature  of  the  speaker  in  the  Psalter  is  one  of  the 
most  fascinating  and  important,  but  at  the  same  time  one  of 
the  most  delicate  of  exegetical  problems. 

The  literature  upon  these  various  subjects,  unlike  the  literature 
upon  Chronicles,  is  enormous;  but  the  recent  commentaries,  with 
which  the  work  of  Dr.  Briggs  would  naturally  be  compared,  are 

30  A  Critical  and  Exegetical  Commentary  on  the  Book  of  Psalms.  By 
Charles  Augustus  Briggs,  D.D.,  D.Litt.,  Professor  of  Theological  Encyclopaedia 
and  Symbolics,  Union  Theological  Seminary,  New  York,  and  Emily  Grace  Briggs, 
B.D.     Two  volumes.     New  York,  1906,  1907. 


70  HARVARD  THEOLOGICAL  REVIEW 

those  of  Baethgen  in  the  Handkommentar,  Duhm  in  the  Kurzer 
Hand-Commentar,  and  Kirkpatrick  in  the  Cambridge  Bible.  The 
first  of  these  is  marked  by  solid  learning,  clear  exposition,  and  a 
commendable  agnosticism  in  the  matter  of  dating  the  psalms,  but 
is  perhaps  too  cautious  in  its  textual  criticism,  and  it  is  in  no  sense 
a  creative  work.  Kirkpatrick's  commentary  belongs  to  the  more 
elaborate  and  ambitious  commentaries  in  the  Cambridge  Bible. 
It  is  clear  and  informing  on  its  exegetical  side,  though  largely  an 
echo  of  Baethgen,  but  seems  to  be  distinctly  defective  in  its  his- 
torical criticism.  Attempts  to  find  suitable  situations  for  the 
psalms  in  David's  life  (compare,  for  example,  the  remarks  on 
Ps.  41)  should  be  abandoned.  Duhm's  commentary  is  the  work 
of  an  expository  genius,  compact,  clear-cut,  illuminating,  marked 
by  a  speculative  daring  that  often  throws  a  flood  of  light  upon 
obscure  passages  or  gives  to  what  had  become  a  platitude  the 
interest  of  a  newly  discovered  truth.  But  it  has  the  defects  of  its 
author's  other  work.  It  is  very  one-sided,  and  maintains  a  theory 
of  the  origin  of  the  Psalter  in  the  late  Maccabean  period  which 
conflicts  with  the  external  evidence  and  involves  serious  intrinsic 
improbabilities.31  Nevertheless,  if  the  reader  does  not  allow  him- 
self to  be  dazzled  by  Duhm,  he  can  probably  learn  from  his  preg- 
nant pages  more  about  the  crucial  problems  of  the  Psalter,  and  in 
a  shorter  space  of  time,  than  from  any  other  commentary. 

As  compared  with  the  three  works  just  mentioned,  Briggs's 
commentary  is  a  vast  thesaurus  of  statistical  facts.  In  its  learn- 
ing it  is  like  one  of  the  post-reformation  Biblical  treatises  rather 
than  a  modern  work.  One  can  well  believe  that  the  labor  of 
forty  years,  as  the  author  informs  us,  has  been  crammed  into  its 
more  than  one  thousand  closely  printed  pages.  As  an  example 
of  erudition,  this  commentary  is  likely  to  remain  a  monument,  to 
one  of  the  most  learned  American  scholars  of  this  generation. 
But  is  it  an  illuminating  commentary?  Does  it  make  stimulating 
and  suggestive  contributions  to  the  solution  of  the  problems  above 
referred  to?     This,  if  the  present  reviewer  may  be  permitted  to 

31  For  instance,  the  view  that  we  have  whole  series  of  violently  polemical 
psalms,  both  Pharisaic  and  Sadducean,  incorporated  in  our  Psalter.  How  both 
these  hostile  groups  of  psalms  could  have  been  inserted  into  the  Psalter  in  the 
short  space  of  time  which  Duhm  allows  for  its  compilation  after  they  were  writ- 
ten, is  not  made  clear. 


THE  PSALMS  71 

express  himself  with  absolute  candor,  it  does  not  always  appear 
to  do.  It  is  possible  that  Briggs's  positions  have  not  all  been 
fully  understood.  The  book  is  no  easy  reading.  Its  style  is 
not  infrequently  opaque;  the  author's  "buts"  and  "fors,"  when 
he  provides  them,  often  refer  (like  those  of  the  Johannine  gospel 
and  epistles)  to  something  in  his  own  mind  rather  than  to  any- 
thing actually  expressed,  and  the  student  is  left  to  infer  as  best 
he  can  the  connections  which  the  writer  may  have  had  in  mind. 
But  those  parts  of  the  commentary  which  will  be  most  severely 
criticised  in  what  follows  have  been  studied  with  care,  and  the 
effort  honestly  made  to  understand  the  positions  to  which  excep- 
tion has  been  taken. 

Briggs's  introduction  treats  at  length  of  the  Text,  the  Higher 
Criticism,  the  Canonicity,  and  the  Interpretation  of  the  Psalter. 
Under  the  caption  "Higher  Criticism"  (pp.  liv-xcii)  are  discussed 
the  origin  and  growth  of  the  Psalter  as  a  collection,  and  an  entirely 
new  theory  on  this  subject  is  advanced.  Briefly,  it  is  as  follows: 
There  was  first  an  early  collection  of  six  miktam  psalms  (the  word 
being  explained  after  the  rabbinic  etymology  as  "golden"  or 
"choice"  psalms)  made  in  the  early  Persian  period.  There  was 
also  a  collection  of  thirteen  maskil  psalms  (explained  as  "medita- 
tive poems")  made  in  the  late  Persian  period.  About  the  same 
time  (late  Persian)  the  Davidic  collection  of  psalms  was  formed, 
originally  sixty-eight  in  number,  although  in  the  present  Psalter 
we  have  seventy-four.  This  was  the  first  of  the  minor  psalters, 
andinto  it  were  inserted  all  the  miktam  psalms  and  six  of  the  mas- 
kilim.  Next  in  order  came  the  two  originally  independent  col- 
lections of  the  Korah  and  Asaph  psalms  (late  Persian  or  early 
Greek  period).  The  Asaph  collection  adopted  two  of  the  mas- 
kilim  not  appropriated  by  the  Davidic  collection,  and  the  Korah 
psalter  adopted  four  others.  The  next  stage  in  the  evolution 
was  the  collection  (early  Greek  period)  of  fifty-seven  mizmorim 
(the  technical  word  for  "psalms"),  which  was  a  selection  from  the 
existing  collections  of  certain  of  the  Davidic,  Asaph,  and  Korah 
psalms  with  the  addition  of  a  few  others.  This  was  apparently 
followed  by  the  elohistic  psalter  (Pss.  42-83),  a  group  of  psalms 
in  which  the  name  Elohim  is  regularly  used  for  God,  although  in 
their  original  form  many  of  these  psalms  used  Jahveh   (middle 


72  HARVARD  THEOLOGICAL  REVIEW 

Greek  period).  It  is  inferred  from  the  use  of  the  divine  name 
Elohim  that  this  psalter  was  composed  in  Babylonia  (a  very  pre- 
carious inference).  The  elohistic  psalter  also  was  made  up  of  se- 
lections from  David,  Korah,  and  the  mizmorim,  and  included  all 
of  Asaph.  About  the  same  time  there  came  into  existence  in  Pal- 
estine another  psalter,  containing  fifty-five  psalms,  and  known  as 
the  "director's  psalter,"  this  being  Briggs's  interpretation  of  the 
phrase  which  the  English  Bible  renders  "for  the  chief  musician." 
Then  arose  the  groups  of  hallels  and  pilgrim  psalms,  which  were 
mainly  compiled  in  the  Greek  period.  In  the  Maccabean  period 
the  Psalter  received  its  final  shape,  being  divided  into  the  five 
books  which  we  find  at  present. 

Both  from  the  method  and  the  results  of  this  section  of  the 
introduction  a  thorough-going  dissent  must  be  recorded.  In 
the  first  place,  it  seems  to  the  present  reviewer  that  the  subject 
is  approached  from  the  wrong  angle.  The  treatment  is  dominated 
by  the  chronological  point  of  view,  and  an  attempt  is  made  to 
indicate  the  gradual  growth  of  the  Psalter  out  of  preceding  minor 
collections.  This  is  all  very  well,  but  first  of  all  it  should  be 
proved  that  such  preceding  minor  collections  existed.  This  is 
not  done:  we  have  merely  the  statement,  "This  is  the  way  the 
Psalter  grew,"  and  the  reader  is  left  to  guess  which  of  the  multi- 
tudinous facts  presented  in  the  course  of  the  discussion  would 
have  been  used  to  support  the  theory,  if  the  author  had  chosen 
to  state  his  argument.  The  complaint  is  not  that  the  facts,  or 
at  least  the  more  important  ones,  in  support  of  a  critical  decom- 
position of  the  Psalter  are  not  given,  but  rather  that  because  of 
the  chronological  arrangement  of  the  material  facts  which  natu- 
rally go  together  and  throw  light  upon  each  other  and  upon  the 
critical  structure  of  the  Psalter,  are  violently  separated  and  thus 
lose  a  large  part  of  their  evidential  force. 

In  order  to  illustrate  the  confusion  which  arises  from  the  chrono- 
logical arrangement  of  the  material,  it  may  be  well  briefly  to 
indicate  the  evidence  commonly  employed  in  the  critical  analysis 
of  the  Psalter,  and  then  to  show  how  this  material  is  utilized  by 
Dr.  Briggs. 

Criticism  has  usually  started,  and  with  obvious  propriety, 
from  the  division  of  the  Psalter  into  five  books,  a  division  plainly 


THE  PSALMS  73 

indicated  by  the  doxologies  that  stand  at  the  end  of  the  first 
four  books.  The  doxologies,  therefore,  give  us  our  first  clue. 
On  nearer  inspection  this  fivefold  division  is  seen  to  have  been 
superimposed  upon  a  more  fundamental  threefold  division,  the 
key  to  which  is  the  alternation  in  the  use  of  the  divine  names. 
Book  I  is  a  homogeneous  collection  of  Davidic  psalms,  in  which 
Jahveh  is  regularly  used;  in  Books  II-III,  Elohim  is  regularly 
used;  in  Books  IV-V,  Jahveh  is  again  used.  Thus  the  elohistic 
redaction  of  the  middle  books  of  the  Psalter  furnishes  our  second 
important  clue  to  the  analysis.  It  will  be  observed  that  the 
doxology  at  the  end  of  Book  I  coincides  with  a  critical  line  of 
cleavage.  If  we  turn  to  Books  II-III,  in  which  the  elohistic 
psalms  are  found,  four  very  distinct  groups  emerge:  (a)  a  Korah 
Elohim-group  (Pss.  42-49);  (b)  a  Davidic  Elohim-group  (Pss. 
51-72);  (c)  an  Asaph  Elohim-group  (Pss.  73-83);  (d)  a  Korah 
Jahveh-group  (Pss.  84-89). 32 

The  first  thing  that  strikes  the  attention  in  this  analysis  is  that 
the  elohistic  redaction  does  not  quite  coincide  with  the  division 
into  books.  We  should  expect  the  dividing  line,  marked  by  the 
doxology,  to  fall  at  the  end  of  the  elohistic  psalms  (that  is,  after 
Ps.  83),  and  that  Psalms  84-89,  which  are  Jahveh  psalms,  would 
be  combined  with  the  Jahveh  psalms  of  Books  IV-V.  On  the 
other  hand,  this  little  group  is  principally  a  Korah  group  with 
close  affinities  to  the  elohistic  Korah-group.  The  suggestion  has 
been  made  that  Psalms  84-89  are  an  appendix  to  the  elohistic 
psalter.  If  so,  the  doxology  at  the  end  of  Book  III  (Ps.  89  52) 
is  again  seen  to  have  critical  significance.  Further,  it  would 
seem  proper  to  postulate  a  somewhat  different  literary  history 
for  the  two  groups  of  Korah  psalms.  Otherwise,  it  is  difficult 
to  see  why  they  did  not  all  suffer  an  elohistic  redaction. 

In  the  second  place,  the  elohistic  redaction  is  unexpectedly 
broken  in  two  by  the  division  between  Books  II  and  III,  again 
marked  by  the  doxology,  Ps.  72  18  f.,  and  also  by  the  remarkable 
editorial  note,  Ps.  72  20.  Because  of  this  division  the  Korah 
and  Davidic  Elohim-psalms  are  classed  together  and,  with  one 
Asaph  psalm  (Ps.  50),  are  separated  from  the  group  of  Asaph 

32  Psalm  50  is  an  isolated  Asaph  psalm  inserted  between  the  Korah  and  Da- 
vidic psalms.     The  significance  of  its  position  is  discussed  below. 


74  HARVARD  THEOLOGICAL  REVIEW 

Elohim-psalms.  The  anomalous  position  of  Ps.  72  20  has  always 
been  recognized;  but  the  very  peculiarity  of  its  position  gives  it 
an  unusual  critical  significance.  It  points  to  the  necessity  of  a 
critical  analysis  both  of  what  precedes  and  of  what  follows.  It 
proves  that  the  Davidic  group  (Pss.  51-72)  must  have  once  existed 
apart  from  the  Korah  group  (Pss.  42-49),  for  this  note  is  only 
appropriate  at  the  end  of  a  homogeneous  Davidic  collection. 
And  we  may  go  a  step  further  with  considerable  probability. 
The  Korah  group  (Pss.  42-49)  and  the  Asaph  group  (Pss.  73-83) 
are  the  psalms  of  the  two  great  levitical  singing-guilds.  They 
would  naturally,  therefore,  be  grouped  together.  The  fact  that 
this  is  not  the  case,  but  that  the  Korah  group  is  illogically  combined 
with  the  Davidic  group  to  form  Book  II,  strongly  suggests  that 
a  collection  of  Korah  and  Davidic  psalms  was  made  before  these 
were  combined  with  the  Asaph  psalms  to  make  up  the  Elohim 
psalter.  Probably,  then,  the  homogeneous  group  of  Asaph 
psalms  also  had  at  one  time  an  independent  existence.  It  thus 
appears  that  the  collections  of  the  Davidic,  the  Korah,  and  the 
Asaph  elohistic  psalms  all  had  once  an  independent  existence; 
that  the  Davidic  and  Korah  psalms  were  then  grouped  together 
in  our  present  Book  II;  and,  finally,  that  these  two  groups  were 
combined  with  the  Asaph  psalms  into  the  present  Elohim  psalter 
(Pss.  42-83). 

But  the  editorial  note,  Ps.  72  20,  enables  us  to  draw  still  another 
inference.  The  writer  of  this  note  could  not  have  known  of  any 
of  the  Davidic  psalms  that  follow  it  in  the  present  Psalter.  Con- 
sequently, the  scattered  Davidic  psalms  in  Books  III  and  IV  and 
the  groups  of  Davidic  psalms  in  Book  V  probably  had  a  different 
literary  history  from  the  homogeneous  Davidic  Elohim-psalms  of 
Book  II.  On  the  other  hand,  the  relationship  of  the  Davidic 
Elohim-group  of  Book  II  to  the  Davidic  Jahveh-group  of  Book  I 
is  an  unsettled  question.  Did  these  two  groups  originally  form 
one  collection,  of  which  Ps.  72  20  was  the  conclusion,  or  are  they 
independent  parallel  collections?  To  the  present  reviewer  the 
latter  view  has  always  seemed  more  probable  on  general  prin- 
ciples; but  the  relationship  between  the  two  Davidic  psalters 
is  further  complicated  by  the  fact  that  Psalm  16  is  found,  as 
Psalm  53,  in  an  elohistic  redaction — a  positive  proof  that  in  the 
elohistic  psalms  we  are  dealing  with  a  distinct  psalter. 


THE  PSALMS  75 

It  will  be  seen  from  the  above  that  the  doxologies  at  the  end 
of  Books  I,  II,  and  III  indicate  correct  critical  divisions  of  the 
Psalter.  The  case  is  different  with  Ps.  106  48,  the  final  doxology 
of  Book  IV.  It  is  admitted  on  all  hands  that  this  division  is 
critically  unsound.  Psalms  105-107  form  a  very  closely  connected 
group  of  psalms.  Their  separation  by  the  doxology  into  different 
books  is  unfortunate,  and  the  division  evidently  artificial.  Books 
IV-V  are  therefore  generally  regarded  as  in  reality  making  up 
one  collection.  Within  it,  however,  the  pilgrim  psalms  (Pss. 
120-134)  stand  out  very  distinctly  and  can  most  probably  be 
regarded  as  forming  a  minor  psalter. 

In  the  above  analysis,  which  sums  up  in  general  outline  the 
evidence  for  a  critical  structure  of  the  Psalter  as  it  has  been  de- 
veloped in  the  last  twenty-five  years,  the  following  collections 
emerge  with  distinctness:  (1)  a  Davidic  collection  constituting 
Book  I;  (2)  the  Davidic  collection  of  Book  II  (probably  originally 
distinct  from  the  collection  of  Book  I) ;  (3)  the  Korah  and  Asaph 
collections  of  Books  II  and  III;  (4)  the  elohistic  psalter,  which 
represents  a  combination  of  the  second  collection  of  Davidic 
psalms  with  the  Korah  and  Asaph  psalms,  together  with  a  Korah 
appendix;  (5)  a  great  collection  of  miscellaneous  psalms  (Books 
IV-V) ;  within  which  (6)  the  pilgrim  psalms  stand  out  as  a  homo- 
geneous collection,  also  no  doubt  originally  a  minor  psalter. 

Let  us  now  turn  to  some  illustrations  of  the  way  in  which 
Briggs  makes  use  of  this  material.  In  the  first  place,  the  dis- 
cussion of  the  doxologies,  which  we  have  seen  to  be  the  natural 
starting-point  of  the  investigation,  is  deferred  to  the  end  of  the 
analysis.  This  is  due  to  the  chronological  arrangement  of  the 
material.  Briggs  believes  that  the  doxologies  were  inserted  by 
the  final  editor  of  the  Psalter.  Hence  they  are  discussed  last. 
Even  granting  that  they  are  due  to  the  final  editor  (though  this 
is  very  much  to  be  doubted  in  the  case  of  the  first  three),  they 
have  been  shown  to  mark  lines  of  critical  cleavage.  Hence,  if 
the  object  is  to  show  how  the  Psalter  should  be  analyzed  into 
earlier  minor  psalters,  the  postponement  of  all  mention  of  the 
doxologies  to  the  end  of  the  discussion  is  most  unfortunate;  it 
prevents  any  use  of  this  first  clue  to  the  analysis. 

In  the  next  place,  the  treatment  of  the  elohistic  psalter  stands 


76  HARVARD  THEOLOGICAL  REVIEW 

midway  in  the  discussion,  after  the  reader  has  already  had 
to  accept  largely  on  faith  the  miktam,  maskil,  Davidic,  Korah, 
Asaph,  and  mizmorim  psalters.  The  discussion  of  the  elohistic 
psalter  (§  32)  is  entirely  separated  from  the  discussion  of  the 
threefold  division  of  the  Psalter  (§  38),  with  which  it  would  nat- 
urally be  connected,  because  the  compilation  of  the  elohistic 
psalter  preceded  in  point  of  time  the  present  threefold  arrange- 
ment.33 

Again,  the  critical  use  made  of  Ps.  72  20  must  be  regarded  as 
wholly  inadequate.  It  is  used  only  to  confirm  the  supposition 
of  a  Davidic  psalter  (§  27).  It  is  not  used  to  disintegrate  the 
elohistic  psalter  into  its  original  elements.  One  might  as  well 
pass  a  current  of  electricity  through  water  and  say  that  the  result 
was  two  parts  of  hydrogen,  with  the  oxygen  totally  ignored. 
The  domination  of  the  chronological  point  of  view  would  again 
seem  to  be  responsible  for  this  failure  to  make  full  use  of 
Ps.  72  20.  Each  of  the  groups — Davidic,  Korah,  and  Asaph — 
is  treated  by  itself  in  the  supposed  chronological  order  of  their 
origin  and  without  reference  to  the  other  groups.  As  Ps.  72  20 
is  attached  to  the  Davidic  group,  it  is  mentioned  only  in  connec- 
tion with  that  group,  and  the  indirect  bearing  which  its  position 
gives  it  upon  the  separation  of  the  Korah  and  Asaph  groups  is  not 
mentioned.  Thus  the  doxologies,  the  peculiarity  of  the  elohistic 
psalter,  and  Ps.  72  20,  which,  taken  together,  are  the  clues  to  the 
critical  analysis  of  the  Psalter,  lose  almost  all  their  evidential 
force  through  the  chronological  disposition  of  the  material  adopted 
by  Briggs. 

But  what,  then,  it  may  be  asked,  is  the  evidence  which  Briggs 
adduces  in  favor  of  the  existence  of  minor  psalters  previous  to 

33  The  threefold  division  of  course  implies  the  artificiality  of  the  doxology 
at  the  end  of  Book  IV  (Ps.  106  48).  But  in  discussing  the  threefold  division, 
nothing  is  said  as  to  this  implication.  The  artificiality  of  the  doxology  as  the 
closing  doxology  of  Book  IV  is,  indeed,  implied  at  §  35,  where  the  attempt  is  made 
to  show  that  there  was  a  hallel  psalter,  and  at  §  40,  where  the  connection  of  Ps. 
106  48  with  1  Chron.  16  36  is  discussed.  But  the  bearing  of  Briggs's  view  of  this 
doxology  upon  the  book  divisions  is  not  brought  out  where  we  should  expect  it  to 
be.  Briggs  further  holds  that  this  doxology  was  arbitrarily  inserted  by  the  final 
editor.  This  is  by  no  means  so  probable  as  the  view  that  the  doxology  originally 
belonged  to  the  psalm,  and  that  the  unfortunate  division  into  books  was  made  at 
this  point  because  the  doxology  already  stood  here. 


THE  PSALMS  77 

our  present  Psalter?  Strictly  speaking,  none  whatever.  Let 
me  not  be  misunderstood.  I  do  not  mean  to  convey  the  im- 
pression that  no  facts  which  might  have  been  used  as  evidence 
are  mentioned.  I  only  mean  that  their  evidential  value  is  not 
pointed  out.  The  nearest  approach  to  an  argument  for  a  minor 
psalter  is  found  in  §  27,  which  treats  of  the  Davidic  psalter. 
Briggs  starts  from  the  phrase  in  the  title  of  these  psalms  le-david, 
ambiguously  translated  in  the  Revised  Version,  "Of  David." 
Until  comparatively  recent  times  it  has  been  commonly  held 
that  the  preposition  le  denoted  authorship,  and  was  to  be  trans- 
lated "by."     Briggs  departs  from  this  traditional  view,  saying: 

The  le  is  not  the  le  of  authorship,  as  has  generally  been  supposed. 
The  earliest  collection  of  Pss.  for  use  in  the  synagogue  was  made 
under  the  name  of  David,  the  traditional  father  of  religious  poetry 
and  of  the  temple  worship.  The  later  editors  left  this  name  in  the 
titles,  with  the  preposition  le  attached,  to  indicate  that  these  Psalms 
belonged  to  that  collection.  This  explains  all  the  facts  of  the  case 
and  the  position  of  these  Pss.  in  the  Psalter.  This  view  is  con- 
firmed by  Ps.  72  20,  which  states  that  this  Ps.  was  the  conclusion 
of  the  prayers  of  David,  and  implies  that  the  collection  was  a  prayer- 
book. 

The  argument  of  this  paragraph  would  seem  to  be  that  the  prep- 
osition le  implied  a  Davidic  psalter,  and  that  this  is  confirmed 
by  Ps.  72  20.  But  this  begs  the  whole  question.  The  correctness 
of  the  interpretation  of  the  le  is  assumed,  not  proved.  Briggs 's 
view  of  its  meaning  is  a  favorite  one  at  the  present  time,  and  may 
be  correct,  but  it  is  distinctly  debatable,  and  has  a  number  of 
weighty  arguments  against  it.  One  of  the  objections  to  the  as- 
sumed interpretation  of  le  is  found  in  the  very  passage  cited  in 
its  support,  Ps.  72  20.  The  editor  who  appended  this  note  must 
certainly  have  thought  that  David  was  the  author  of  the  preceding 
psalms.  But  if  so,  the  title  le-david  must  already  have  stood 
at  the  head  either  of  each  psalm  or  of  the  collection,  and  must 
have  been  understood  to  imply  authorship.  As  this  editorial 
note  would  seem  to  be  regarded  by  Briggs  (and  quite  correctly)  as 
appended  to  the  original  Davidic  collection,  it  indicates  that  the 
theory  of  the  meaning  of  le  which  he  rejects  existed  as  early  as  the 
first  stages  in  the  evolution  of  the  Psalter.  Since  Briggs 's  inter- 
pretation of  the  le  plays  so  large  a  part  in  his  theory  of  the  Psalter, 


78  HARVARD  THEOLOGICAL   REVIEW 

surely  it  ought  to  have  been  exegetically  and  linguistically  justi- 
fied, and  not  simply  assumed.34 

Whether  the  phrase  lamenasseh  usually  translated,  "For 
the  chief  musician,"  indicates  a  director's  psalter,  is  again  a  de- 
batable question.  The  statement  is  simply  made  that  the  le 
has  the  same  meaning  in  this  phrase  which  Briggs  assigns  to  it 
in  the  phrase  le-david.  But  whether  the  le  in  these  psalm- 
titles  always  has  the  same  significance  is  just  the  problem  which 
requires  discussion.  When,  for  example,  in  the  title  to  Ps. 
51  we  find  both  phrases,  lamenasseh,  le-david,  the  question 
presses  as  to  whether  we  have  a  right  to  interpret  le  both  times 
in  the  same  way.  What  we  want  is  proof,  not  assumption. 
Yet  it  is  not  impossible  that  there  really  may  have  been  a  di- 
rector's psalter,  and  this  theory  was  also  advocated  by  Beer. 
One  piece  of  evidence  for  it  is  found  in  the  fact  that  the  obscure 
musical  or  liturgical  directions  are  only  found  in  these  director- 
psalms,  though  they  by  no  means  occur  in  all  of  them.  Briggs 
notices  this  fact,  but  as  usual  fails  to  point  out  its  evidential 
force.  So  far  as  the  miktam,  maskil,  mizmor,  and  hallel 
psalms  are  concerned,  where  the  preposition  le  does  not  appear, 
no  attempt  whatever  is  made  to  prove  that  they  once  formed 
independent  collections.  It  is  simply  asserted  that  they  did  so. 
There  is  a  possibility  that  the  hallel  psalms  which  appear  in  cer- 
tain groups  in  Book  V  may  have  formed  a  psalter,  but  the  contrast 

34  When  it  is  said  in  the  above  citation  that  the  meaning  of  the  le  adopted 
"explains  all  the  facts  of  the  case  and  the  position  of  these  Pss.  in  the  Psalter," 
we  have  an  instance  of  one  of  those  sovereign  dicta  which  are  altogether  too  fre- 
quent in  this  commentary,  and  whose  effect  is  irritating  rather  than  reassuring. 
In  this  connection  it  may  be  noted  that  from  the  theory  that  the  le  does  not  imply 
authorship  the  conclusion  is  reached  that  all  the  psalms  are  anonymous  except 
Psalms  72,  88,  89,  90,  and  (strangely  enough)  102.  These  are  all  held  to  be  pseu- 
donymous. Even  in  the  thirteen  cases  where  historical  notices  are  attached  to 
the  title  le-david,  it  is  denied  that  the  editor  understood  the  le  of  authorship, 
on  the  ground  that  "it  is  altogether  improbable  .  .  .  that  an  editor  of  the  middle 
Persian  period  could  have  thought  that  his  references  to  experiences  of  David  were 
historical."  Briggs's  theory  is  that  by  means  of  these  historical  notices  the  editor 
simply  wished  to  illustrate  the  psalms,  and  not  to  express  an  opinion  as  to  their 
author,  a  theory  already  tentatively  suggested  by  Beer  (Individual-  und  Gemeinde- 
Psalmen,  p.  lxxxviii),  but  which  is  distinctly  improbable  in  view  of  the  strong 
Davidic  tradition  which  is  known  to  have  existed  at  the  time  when  most  of  the 
psalms  were  composed  (cf.  the  Chronicler). 


THE  PSALMS  79 

with  the  very  clearly  defined  pilgrim  songs  in  the  same  book 
rather  suggests  the  opposite  view.  The  miktam  psalms  also 
form  a  little  group  (Pss.  16,  56-60) ;  but  there  is  no  critical  reason, 
apart  from  the  fact  that  they  stand  together,  for  holding  that  they 
formed  an  independent  collection.  The  maskilim  are,  to  be 
sure,  mainly  concentrated  in  Books  II-III  (eleven  out  of  the  thir- 
teen maskilim  are  found  in  these  two  books),  but  they  are  scat- 
tered through  these  books  in  a  haphazard  manner,  while  the 
mizmorim  are  shuffled  through  all  the  five  books  in  a  way  that 
is  now  wholly  unintelligible.  There  are  no  critical  indications  of 
psalters  in  the  case  of  these  psalms,  which  are  not  even  clearly 
grouped,  and  the  question  presses  whether  in  these  cases  Briggs 
is  not  following  phantom  psalters. 

At  this  point  we  meet  with  another  of  Briggs's  assumptions. 
The  objection  just  raised,  drawn  from  the  unmethodical  distri- 
bution of  the  psalms  in  the  psalters,  is  met  by  the  assumption 
that  all  the  psalms  which  had  a  common  element  in  their  titles 
once  stood  together,  and  that  their  present  distribution  through 
the  Psalter  is  due  to  various  revisions.  So  far  as  I  have  been 
able  to  observe,  no  evidence  for  this  view  is  offered,  and  the  unor- 
ganized character  of  the  maskilim,  mizmorim,  and  even  the  hallel 
psalms,  where  there  are  no  critical  evidences  for  the  existence  of 
independent  psalters,  as  contrasted  with  the  Davidic,  Asaph,  and 
Korah  psalms,  where  there  are  such  evidences,  makes  strongly 
against  the  theory.  When  the  same  theory  is  applied  to  the 
Korah  and  Davidic  psalms,  it  is  equally  gratuitous.  Briggs 
assumes  that  the  elohistic  Korah-psalms  and  the  Jahvistic  Korah- 
psalms  once  stood  together,  but  that  the  present  position  of  the 
Jahvistic  Korah-group  (Pss.  84-89)  was  due  to  the  final  redactor. 
Why  all  the  Korah  psalms  were  not  adopted  into  the  elohistic 
psalter,  if  they  once  stood  together,  he  does  not  tell  us.35  In 
the  same  way,  he  assumes  that  the  Davidic  Jahveh  group  of 
Book  I  and  the  Davidic  Elohim  group  of  Book  II  once  stood 
together,  though  it  is  again  difficult  to  see  why  only  a  part  of  the 
Davidic  psalms  were  selected  from  the  original  psalter  for  elo- 

35  We  have  seen  that  the  greater  probability  is  that  the  two  groups  of  psalms 
had  a  different  literary  history,  and  that  the  Jahveh  group  was  an  appendix  to 
the  Elohim  psalter,  not  an  insertion  by  the  final  editor. 


80  HARVARD  THEOLOGICAL   REVIEW 

histic  redaction.36  He  further  assumes  that  the  Davidic  psalms 
of  Books  III-IV  also  stood  in  the  same  general  collection,  and 
therefore  transfers  them  in  imagination  to  a  place  before  the 
editorial  note,  Ps.  72  20.  This  procedure  would  of  course  over- 
turn the  argument  advanced  above  from  this  note,  that  the 
Davidic  psalms  in  the  later  books  were  unknown  to  the  editor 
who  was  responsible  for  Ps.  72  20;  but  at  the  same  time  it  calmly 
ignores  what  has  usually  been  held  to  be  one  of  the  best  clews  to 
a  true  analysis  of  the  Psalter.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  as  we  shall 
see,  Briggs  himself  distinguishes  certain  Davidic  psalms  in  Book  V 
from  the  other  Davidic  psalms  in  the  later  books,  and  denies  that 
they  stood  in  the  original  Davidic  psalter.37 

If  a  true  presentation  of  Briggs's  method  of  discussion  has  been 
given  thus  far,  it  is  clear  that  the  student  who  wishes  to  find  any 
formal  justification  of  the  critical  analysis  advocated  in  the  com- 
mentary will  be  disappointed.  Briefly  stated,  the  argument  can 
be  reduced  to  the  following:  In  the  titles  to  a  number  of  psalms 
the  name  of  David  occurs.  Therefore  there  was  a  Davidic  psalter. 
In  another  series  of  psalms  mizmor  is  found  in  the  title.  There- 
fore there  was  a  mizmor  collection.  Sometimes  both  the  name 
of  David  and  mizmor  occur  in  the  same  title;  in  such  cases  the 
editor  of  the  mizmor  psalter  took  over  the  psalm  from  the  Davidic 
psalter.     If,    in   addition    to    le-david    and    mizmor    the  phrase 

36  The  fact  that  Psalm  16  appears,  as  Psalm  53,  in  an  elohistic  redaction,  and 
the  bearing  of  this  upon  the  right  to  assume  an  independent  elohistic  psalter, 
is  not  even  referred  to  in  the  chapter  on  Higher  Criticism,  though  it  is  noted  in 
the  chapter  on  the  Text.  This  omission  shows  how  oblivious  our  author  is  of  the 
necessity  of  first  proving  the  existence  of  independent  minor  psalters  in  the 
present  compilation. 

37  Much  labor  is  given  to  the  establishment  of  the  supposed  original  order  of 
the  Davidic  Psalms  (p.  lxiv),  but  the  results  are  far  from  convincing,  and  do  not 
seem  to  throw  any  light  either  upon  the  critical  analysis  of  the  Psalter  or  upon 
the  interpretation  of  the  psalms.  It  may  also  be  noted  that  Psalm  50  is  supposed 
to  have  originally  stood  with  the  other  Asaph  psalms  (Psalms  73-83).  This  is 
possible;  its  present  position  is  at  first  sight  anomalous.  It  is  variously  explained 
by  our  author  as  due  to  the  desire  of  an  editor  "  to  make  an  appropriate  concluding 
Ps.  to  the  first  division  of  50"  (p.  lxvi),  and  as  "giving  an  appropriate  liturgical 
close  [in  what  respect  is  Psalm  50  liturgical?]  to  this  [Korah]  group  before  the  peni- 
tential Psalm  51"  (p.  lxxii).  The  propriety  of  the  word  "appropriate"  in  these 
citations  may  be  questioned.  The  real  reason  for  the  present  position  of  the 
psalm  would  seem  to  be  its  topical  connection  with  the  present  form  of  Psalm  51. 
Both  psalms  are  anti-sacrificial. 


THE  PSALMS  81 

lamenasseh  is  found,  this  means  that  the  psalm  was  first  in 
the  Davidic,  then  in  the  mizmor,  and  finally  in  the  director's 
psalter  (cf.  Psalm  62),  and  so  on  indefinitely.  All  this  is  stated 
as  if  it  were  self-evident;  no  proof  is  given  for  the  theory  advocated. 
The  discussion  is  so  formulated  as  to  show,  not  that  there  were 
original  minor  psalters  behind  our  present  Psalter,  but,  such 
psalters  being  assumed,  their  chronological  relationships  are 
stated,  and  thus  is  indicated  the  growth  of  the  present  Psalter 
from  its  first  beginnings  to  its  final  form. 

The  criticism  thus  far  made  has  been  upon  this  chronological 
method  of  approach.  This  method  does  not  allow  the  evidence 
for  the  existence  of  previous  psalters  to  be  marshalled  in  any 
adequate  way.  But  has  not  our  criticism  after  all  been  some- 
what captious?  Is  it  fair  to  judge  a  writer  by  what  he  does 
not  set  out  to  do,  rather  than  by  what  he  actually  undertakes? 
Briggs  sets  out  to  show  what  he  believes  to  be  the  chronological 
stages  of  the  growth  of  the  Psalter.  This  he  does  very  clearly. 
The  reader  can  easily  follow  the  orderly  sequence,  miktamim, 
maskilim,  David,  Korah,  Asaph,  mizinorim,  and  the  rest. 
May  not  the  advantages  of  this  method  of  presenting  the  subject, 
by  which  the  student  is  enabled  to  grasp  without  difficulty  the 
theory  propounded,  compensate  for  the  disadvantages  which  have 
been  noted? 

But  even  if  we  thus  consider  this  chronological  mode  of  treat- 
ment simply  on  its  positive  side,  and  judge  it  by  what  it  does 
do  and  not  by  what  it  fails  to  do,  we  immediately  encounter 
a  grave  difficulty.  Turn  again  to  the  title  of  Psalm  62.  The 
three  elements  in  this  title  are  chief-musician,  mizmor,  David, 
arranged  in  this  order.  On  Briggs's  theory  of  the  titles  these 
represent  three  minor  psalters.  But  this  order  is  not  the 
chronological  order  of  the  psalters.  Briggs  adopts  the  order 
David,  mizmor,  director.  What  are  the  principles  upon  which 
he  bases  his  view  of  the  chronological  relationship  of  the  various 
psalters? 

It  is  noteworthy  that  only  once  in  Briggs's  entire  discussion 
does  he  make  use  of  any  external  evidence.  In  discussing,  namely, 
the  date  of  the  director's  psalter,  he  refers  to  the  fact  that  the 
term    lamenasseh    is    found    again   in    Habakkuk   3   19.      This, 


82  HARVARD  THEOLOGICAL  REVIEW 

he  says,  was  taken  from  the  director's  psalter,  though  he  gives 
no  proof  of  this  statement.  Hence  Habakkuk  3  is  subsequent  to 
the  director.  But  since  the  prophetic  canon  was  closed  by  the 
time  of  Ben  Sira  (219-198  B.C.),  therefore  the  director's  psalter 
also  must  have  been  composed  before  this  time,  that  is,  in  the 
middle  Greek  period. 

This  almost  total  neglect  of  the  external  evidence  in  determining 
the  date  of  the  Psalter  is  in  the  present  reviewer's  estimation 
a  very  serious  omission.38  The  formula  for  the  use  of  internal 
evidences  of  date  is  a  simple  one:  the  date  of  the  latest  psalm 
in  an  assumed  collection  is  the  terminus  ad  quern  of  the  com- 
pilation of  that  collection. 

But  at  this  point  a  new  difficulty  emerges.  The  Davidic  psalter 
is  held  to  have  been  closed  in  the  late  Persian  period,  because  on 
grounds  of  internal  evidence  no  Davidic  psalms  were  composed 
later  than  this  period.  But  there  are  psalms  with  le-david  in 
their  titles  which  are  assigned  by  Briggs  himself,  again  on  the 
basis  of  internal  evidence,  to  the  Greek  period.  How  is  this 
contradiction  avoided?  By  supposing  that  the  Davidic  titles 
in  the  Greek  psalms  are  not  genuine  old  titles.  Attention  is  also 
called  in  this  connection  to  the  tendency  present  in  later  times, 
as  is  evidenced  by  the  versions,  to  ascribe  psalms  to  David.  Now 
if  evidence  independent  of  the  internal  criteria  of  the  psalms 
themselves  had  been  advanced  for  the  completion  of  the  Davidic 
psalter  in  the  Persian  period,  it  would  perhaps  be  legitimate  to 
exclude  psalms  of  the  Greek  period  from  the  original  Davidic 
psalter  of  the  Persian  period.  But  if  the  dates  of  the  minor 
psalters  are  regularly  determined  by  the  dates  of  the  latest  psalms 
in  them,  it  seems  distinctly  fallacious,  to  put  it  very  mildly,  to 
assign  the  Davidic  psalter  to  the  Persian  period  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  some  psalms  with  Davidic  titles  admittedly  date  from  the 
Greek  period. 

The  entire  theory  of  the  evolution  of  the  Psalter  as  elaborated 

38  It  is  not  treated  even  in  the  section  on  Canonicity,  where  the  omission  of 
any  reference  to  external  evidence  is  even  more  striking.  The  whole  section  on 
Canonicity  is,  it  may  be  remarked,  rather  elementary,  and  is  mainly  taken  up 
with  a  defence  of  the  imprecatory  psalms.  The  discussion  seems  to  move  upon 
the  old  assumption  that  the  canonicity  of  a  Biblical  book  can  be  vindicated  by 
means  of  its  religious,  doctrinal,  and  ethical  contents. 


THE  PSALMS  83 

in  the  introduction  thus  turns  out  to  be  built  exclusively  upon  the 
criticism  of  the  individual  psalms  which  compose  the  several 
subsidiary  collections.  But,  unfortunately,  the  discussion  of  the 
dates  of  the  psalms  is  rigorously  excluded  from  the  introduction. 
Only  the  tabular  results  of  the  conclusions  reached  in  the  body 
of  the  commentary  are  presented.  It  is  a  pity  that  the  reader 
could  not  have  been  apprised  at  the  outset  of  some  of  the  general 
landmarks  by  which  the  attempt  is  made  to  date  the  psalms  in 
the  ensuing  detailed  discussions.  If  only  a  few  words  could  have 
been  said,  for  example,  on  the  relation  of  the  Psalter  to  the  Law 
or  to  Second  Isaiah  or  to  Job,  to  the  development  of  Individualism 
or  ethical  monotheism,  if  it  could  have  been  shown  toward  which 
of  the  two  poles,  to  the  JE  narratives  of  Genesis  or  to  Chronicles, 
the  Psalter  inclines,  the  student  could  have  formed  some  idea 
of  what  to  expect  in  the  following  pages.  As  it  is,  he  must  plunge 
unprepared  into  the  swollen  stream  of  detailed  criticism  that 
flows  through  the  nine  hundred  and  sixty-seven  pages  of  the  com- 
mentary proper.  It  must  be  said  that  the  very  important  section 
on  the  Higher  Criticism  of  the  Psalter  is  thoroughly  unsatisfac- 
tory. The  method  of  presentation  adopted  results  in  a  complete 
disorganization  of  the  proofs  of  the  evolution  of  the  Psalter  in 
the  interest  of  a  formally  clear  presentation  of  the  assumed  chro- 
nological stages  of  evolution.  But  when  the  chronological  theory 
thus  propounded  is  examined,  it  is  found  to  be  based  on  a  me- 
chanical principle,  which  the  author  himself  does  not  always  ad- 
here to,  and  for  proof  of  which  the  reader  is  referred  to  the  body 
of  the  commentary.  The  process  is  nothing  short  of  bewilder- 
ing to  one  who  is  not  already  acquainted  with  the  criticism  of 
the  Psalter,  while  to  one  who  is  acquainted  with  this  the  result 
carries  no  conviction. 

With  regard  to  Briggs's  actual  theory  of  the  dates  of  the  psalms, 
only  the  results  of  his  investigation  and  one  or  two  tests  of  his 
method  can  be  here  given. 

Briggs  assigns  seven  psalms  to  the  early  monarchy  before 
Jehoshaphat,  seven  to  the  middle  monarchy,  thirteen  to  the  late 
monarchy  (altogether  twenty-seven  pre-exilic  psalms,  a  goodly 
proportion  as  modern  critics  go),  thirteen  to  the  exile,  thirty- 
three  to  the  early  Persian  period,  sixteen  to  the  times  of  Nehe- 


84  HARVARD  THEOLOGICAL  REVIEW 

miah,  eleven  to  the  late  Persian  period,  fourteen  to  the  early 
Greek  period,  forty-one  to  the  later  Greek  period,  and  eight  to 
the  period  of  the  Maccabees.  These  results  seem  precise.  But 
for  that  very  reason  they  awaken  suspicion;  can  the  psalms  be 
so  accurately  distributed  over  all  these  centuries  of  development? 
This  suspicion  is  strengthened  when  one  observes  that  the  miktam 
psalms  (Pss.  16,  56-60)  are  distributed  over  several  centuries. 
If  any  group  of  psalms  bear  on  their  face  the  marks  of  homo- 
geneity, it  is  these.  Duhm  assigns  Psalms  56-59  tentatively  to 
one  author,  certainly  to  the  same  period. 

The  attitude  which  a  commentator  assumes  toward  the  ques- 
tion of  Maccabean  and  pre-exilic  psalms  is  one  of  the  surest  touch- 
stones of  his  critical  ability.  On  the  one  hand,  the  fact  that 
only  eight  Maccabean  psalms  (Pss.  33,  102b,  109b,  118,  139c, 
147,  149,  129)  are  accepted  represents  a  wholesome  and  timely 
reaction  against  Duhm  and  his  followers,  who  would  bring  the 
larger  part  of  the  Psalter  down  to  the  Maccabean  period,  and 
much  of  it  to  the  latter  part  of  the  period.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  assignment  of  twenty-seven  psalms  to  the  pre-exilic  period, 
and  seven  of  these  (Pss.  7,  13,  18,  23,  24b,  60a,  and  110)  to  the 
very  early  monarchy,  is  most  precarious.  A  few  illustrations  of 
the  method  of  dating  these  earlier  psalms  will  show  what  weight 
is  to  be  attached  to  some,  at  least,  of  Briggs's  conclusions.  On 
Psalm  7,  which  the  conservative  Baethgen  assigns  to  the  Persian 
period  and  Duhm  to  a  very  late  period,  Briggs  observes  that  there 
is  nothing  to  prevent  its  being  as  early  as  David.  In  this  par- 
ticular case  his  judgment  seems  to  be  somewhat  influenced  by 
the  title,  though  in  general  he  rejects  the  titles  as  authoritative. 
Regarding  Psalm  13,  which  Baethgen  and  Duhm  make  no  at- 
tempt to  date  exactly  but  which  is  closely  related  to  the  other 
psalms  of  persecution  or  martyrdom  in  Book  I,  it  is  stated  that 
there  is  no  internal  evidence  against  a  date  as  early  as  David, 
and  the  claim  is  actually  made  that  "the  author  of  2  Sam.  1 
19-27  might  have  written  it."  The  attempt  to  fix  the  date  of 
Psalm  23  must  be  regarded  as  a  peculiarly  striking  instance  of 
ineffective  argument.  "The  language  and  syntax  of  the  Ps.," 
says  Dr.  Briggs,  "and  all  its  ideals  are  early.  There  is  not  the 
slightest  trace  of  anything  that  is  post-deuteronomic.     The  his- 


THE  PSALMS  85 

torical  circumstances  of  the  poet  must  have  been  peaceful  and 
prosperous."  On  the  basis  of  this  characterization  of  the  psalm, 
the  possibility  of  its  composition  in  the  prosperous  Greek  or  late 
Persian  periods  is  denied.  The  exile  and  early  restoration  are 
ruled  out  because  they  are  times  of  sorrow  and  because  the  singer 
is  able  to  resort  to  the  temple.39  The  reference  to  the  temple 
also  rules  out  David,  and  properly  so.  The  troubled  times  of 
the  Assyrian  and  Babylonian  periods  are  dismissed  for  the  same 
reason  as  the  exile.  Hence  the  psalm  is  assigned  to  "an  earlier 
and  simpler  period,  the  days  of  the  early  monarchy,  not  earlier 
than  Solomon,  or  later  than  Jehoshaphat."  So  far  as  the  lan- 
guage of  the  psalm  is  concerned,  this  does  not  prevent  Baethgen 
from  assigning  it  to  the  post-exilic  period  or  Duhm  from  regard- 
ing it  as  Maccabean.  Apart  from  the  argument  from  language, 
is  it  really  to  be  supposed  that  no  pious  Israelite  or  Jew  could 
have  spoken  with  the  quiet  confidence  of  this  psalm  except  in 
the  period  between  Solomon  and  Jehoshaphat?  As  to  its  ideals, 
Briggs  expressly  admits  that  "the  three  figures,  shepherd,  guide, 
host,  are  all  simple,  natural,  and  characteristic  of  the  life  in 
Jerusalem  and  its  vicinity  at  any  period  in  Biblical  history." 
As  a  matter  of  fact  the  figure  of  the  shepherd  is  especially  promi- 
nent in  Second  Isaiah,  Jeremiah,  and  Ezekiel,  and  might  suggest 
that  the  psalm  was  subsequent  to  these  writers.  That  a  psalm 
of  only  six  verses  should  be  dated  before  Deuteronomy  because 
it  lacks  any  post-deuteronomic  characteristics,  is  surely  a  most 
fragile  argument  from  silence.  In  fact  Psalm  23  cannot  be 
dated  by  itself  alone.  The  only  safe  method  of  procedure  is  to 
attempt  to  fix  the  approximate  date  of  the  group  of  psalms  with 
which  it  is  most  naturally  associated.40  These  illustrations  do  not 
awaken  much  confidence  in  the  principles  of  historical  criticism 
underlying  them,  and  doubt  becomes  despair  when  we  find  Psalm 
110  tentatively  brought  into  connection  with  the  victory  of  Je- 
hoshaphat recounted  in  2  Chron.  20.  Moreover,  many  of 
Briggs's  results  are  only  obtained  by  the  assumption  of  more  or 

39  The  reading  of  the  LXX  at  vs.  6b  is  adopted,  cf.  R.  V. 

40  Psalm  23  is  very  closely  related  to  Psalm  27,  so  closely  in  fact  that  it  is 
not  impossible  that  they  had  a  common  author  (cf.  Duhm).  But  Briggs  ascribes 
Psalm  27  to  the  middle  monarchy. 


86  HARVARD  THEOLOGICAL  REVIEW 

less  extensive  glosses  or  accretions.41  Psalms  which  in  their  pres- 
ent form  are  shown  either  by  language  or  by  religious  and  other 
ideas  to  be  late,  may  be  dated  earlier  if  these  modernisms  can  be 
eliminated  as  glosses.  The  assumption  of  the  possibility  of 
glosses  is  theoretically  entirely  legitimate.  Hymns  are  notori- 
ously tinkered  with,  and  it  can  be  demonstrated  in  the  case  of 
the  duplicate  psalms  that  the  hymns  of  the  Psalter  are  no  excep- 
tion. The  question  is  whether  the  glosses  and  accretions  can  be 
successfully  detected.  It  is  at  this  point  that  we  touch  Briggs's 
metrical  analyses  of  the  psalms.  It  is  poetical  considerations, 
metre  and  strophical  arrangement,  that  are  most  often  used  as 
clues  to  the  detection  of  glosses.  It  will  therefore  be  necessary 
to  turn  our  attention  for  a  few  moments  to  the  next  great  prob- 
lem which  confronts  us  in  the  Psalter,  the  problem  of  Hebrew 
poetry. 

Hebrew  metrics  forms  one  of  the  most  technical  and  most 
vexed  questions  in  Old  Testament  study.  Briggs  has  been  for  a 
generation  a  valiant  champion  of  the  existence  of  Hebrew  metre, 
and  has  contributed  perhaps  more  than  any  other  American 
scholar  to  the  advancement  of  this  particular  subject.  It  has 
been  more  and  more  recognized  that  in  Hebrew  poetry  we 
have  on  a  priori  grounds  every  right  to  expect  some  sort  of  a 
metrical  system.  The  difficulty  has  been  to  determine  what 
are  the  exact  principles  of  that  system.  Briggs  long  ago  adopted 
the  principles  of  the  German  scholar,  Julius  Ley,  in  which  the 
accents  or  tone-syllables  are  laid  at  the  foundation  of  Hebrew 
metre,  and  he  has  lived  to  see  these  principles,  which  were  at 
first  regarded  with  great  skepticism,  adopted  by  a  steadily  in- 
creasing number  of  scholars.  Yet  there  is  a  weakness  in  the 
so-called  accentual  system  of  Ley  and  Briggs.  If  accents  or  tones 
alone  are  counted,  we  do  not  get  any  real  metre.  This  defect 
was  pointed  out  by  Sievers,  who  insisted  that  the  falls  and  pauses, 
as  well  as  the  accents  or  rises,  must  be  counted  in.  Ley  himself, 
in  articles  published  since  his  death  in  1901,  seems  finally  to  have 

41  So,  in  the  case  of  Psalm  110  just  cited,  and  most  notably  in  the  case  of 
Psalm  18.  The  two  other  parts  of  psalms  assigned  to  the  early  monarchy,  Ps. 
24  7  ff.  and  60  6  ff.  have  perhaps  a  more  defensible  claim  to  antiquity  than  those 
which  have  been  noticed. 


THE  PSALMS  87 

recognized  this  defect,  but  Briggs  seems  to  be  still  skeptical  of 
the  value  of  Sievers's  supplement  to  Ley's  system  (p.  xli). 

Our  author  does  not  go  into  the  technicalities  of  this  subject 
beyond  giving  a  few  general  rules  for  counting  the  tones.42  He 
holds  that  there  are  four  measures  in  the  Psalms:  trimeters  or 
three-toned  lines  (these  being  the  most  frequent),  tetrameters, 
pentameters  (a  measure  particularly  investigated  by  Budde,  and 
with  great  success),  and  hexameters.  The  existence  of  two- 
toned  lines  is  denied  (against  Duhm).  All  the  psalms  are 
stretched  or  contracted  to  fit  these  measures. 

Briggs  also  holds  to  a  strophical  arrangement  of  most  of  the 
psalms.  The  strophes  are  primarily  determined  "by  a  more 
decided  separation  in  the  thought  of  the  poem,"  and  by  noting 
the  relationships  of  the  several  poetical  parallelisms.  In  other 
words,  while  the  metre  of  the  different  lines  is  closely  connected 
with  textual  criticism,  the  determination  of  the  strophe  is  in- 
timately allied  with  exegesis. 

The  present  reviewer  cannot  claim  to  be  an  expert  in  the  de- 
partment of  Hebrew  metres;  his  judgments  are  those  of  a  layman. 
But  his  impressions  are  that  a  very  large  amount  of  truth  must 
be  admitted  in  Briggs's  metrical  system.  Many  of  the  psalms 
lend  themselves  with  but  little  emendation  to  a  consistent  met- 
rical scheme.  In  many  the  emendations  which  are  supported, 
independently  of  the  metre,  by  purely  text-critical  or  exegetical 
considerations  enable  the  student  to  recover  the  strophical 
analysis,  and  therewith  restore  the  original  beauty  and  meaning 
of  the  psalm.  In  such  cases  the  result  justifies  the  process.  In 
seeing  the  psalm  assume  shape  and  color  the  student  finds  the 
same  pleasure  which  a  critic  of  paintings  might  take  in  watching 
the  gradual  restoration  of  an  old  masterpiece  of  which  the  lines 
and  colors  had  become  confused  and  dulled  by  the  grime  of  ages. 
The  exegetical  and  aesthetic  value  of  such  successful  restorations 
can  scarcely  be  overestimated.  But  there  are  a  large  number  of 
instances  in  which  it  does  not  seem  as  if  the   accentual   system 

42  For  instance,  monosyllabic  words  are  not  usually  to  be  accented.  Words 
of  four  or  more  syllables  have  a  secondary  accent,  which  is  counted  in  the  measure. 
The  insertion  of  the  conjunction  ve  before  a  monosyllable  will  justify  giving  to 
the  latter  the  force  of  a  tone. 


88  HARVARD  THEOLOGICAL  REVIEW 

or  any  other  had  as  yet  solved  the  metrical  problem,  and  in  which 
the  strophical  arrangement  is  correspondingly  obscure.  The 
hammering  and  sawing  of  the  lines  which  at  times  Briggs  finds 
necessary  in  order  to  bring  his  metres  into  accord,  makes  such  a 
tremendous  din  that  the  music  of  the  reconstructed  psalm  is 
fairly  drowned  out.43 

What  Smend  says  in  reference  to  the  interpretation  of  the 
psalms  generally  has  a  particular  application  to  their  metrical 
reconstruction  and  strophical  analysis:  "Every  expert  knows 
that  many  a  psalm  is  like  a  fortress  which  defies  a  regular  siege 
and  can  only  be  conquered  by  a  lucky  chance."  In  the  present 
uncertainty  in  the  field  of  Hebrew  metre  successful  restorations 
or  emendations  depend  more  on  deftness  of  exegesis,  soundness 
of  judgment  in  textual  criticism,  and  poetic  divination  than  on 
the  system  of  metre  adopted.  In  the  two  illustrations  which  I 
shall  give  of  Briggs's  poetical  analyses,  the  criticisms  will  be 
made  from  the  exegetical  point  of  view.  In  the  one  case  his 
siege-works  seem  to  me  to  have  utterly  failed  to  reduce  the  for- 
tress.    In  the  other  he  has  captured  it  with  brilliant  success. 

Psalm  18  has  always  been  a  touchstone  of  the  commentator's 
principles  of  historical  criticism  and  of  his  exegetical  tact.  Upon 
it  all  those  fall  back  who  wish  to  defend  the  Davidic  authorship 
of  any  of  the  psalms.  At  the  present  time  no  scholar  who  has 
been  at  all  influenced  by  historical  criticism  will  undertake  to 
defend  the  psalm  as  it  stands.  Those  who  defend  its  Davidic 
authorship  can  only  do  so  at  the  expense  of  its  integrity.  This 
is  the  course  adopted  by  Briggs.  The  psalm  is  Davidic,  but 
only  after  all  that  in  his  judgment  is  non-davidic  has  been  elimi- 
nated. The  question  is  whether  these  eliminations  can  be  exe- 
getically  and  text-critically  justified.  By  the  battering-rams  of 
metre  and  strophe  Briggs  proposes  to  break  through  the  outer 
bastions  and  get  back  to  the  old  Davidic  wall. 

The  metre  of  the  psalm  is  the  trimeter,  and  forms  one  of  the 
most  obvious  examples  of  this  measure  to  be  found  anywhere. 
It  is  in  general  so  clear  and  consistent  that  departures  from  it 

43  As  an  example,  note  the  carpentry- work  that  must  be  done  on  the  mikiam 
psalms.  Psalm  59  has  practically  to  be  rewritten  in  order  to  bring  it  into  a  metrical 
scheme.     Whether  the  result  is  poetry  is  another  question. 


THE  PSALMS  89 

at  once  arouse  suspicion.  In  the  majority  of  the  emendations 
necessary  to  preserve  the  metre,  considerations  of  textual  criti- 
cism and  exegesis  enable  us  to  cut  out  intruding  elements  with 
considerable  assurance.44  But  these  metrical  emendations  have 
little  direct  bearing  upon  Briggs's  reconstruction  of  the  psalm, 
except  as  they  affect  the  structure  of  the  strophes.  It  is  the 
strophical  analysis  which  is  made  the  basis  of  Briggs's  critical 
process. 

We  have  seen  that  the  strophical  analysis  depends  primarily 
upon  the  understanding  of  the  course  of  thought  in  the  poem. 
In  Psalm  18  there  are  two  very  clearly  marked  divisions:  Part  I, 
vss.  1-26,  and  Part  II,  vss.  32-50.  Part  I  describes  the  deliver- 
ance of  the  singer  from  some  great  danger;  the  description  is 
highly  figurative  and  the  precise  nature  of  the  danger  is  not 
revealed.  Part  II  treats  of  the  equipment  for  war  of  the  singer 
by  his  God  and  his  complete  triumph  over  his  enemies;  the 
theme  of  Part  II  recalls  Homer.  Between  these  two  sharply  dis- 
tinguished parts  stands  the  obscure  passage  vss.  27-31. 

If  we  examine  Part  I  more  attentively,  it  is  found  to  break  up 
into  three  clearly  marked  sections:  (1)  vss.  1-3,  gratitude  to  God 
for  deliverance;  (2)  vss.  4-19,  the  description  of  the  singer's  dan- 
ger (very  rhetorical  and  ornate);  (3)  vss.  20-26,  the  religious  and 
ethical  significance  of  the  deliverance.  This  last  section  is  an 
amplification  of  the  closing  thought  of  the  second  section  (vs. 
19b).  In  Part  II  the  equipment  of  the  warrior,  his  pursuit  of 
the  enemy,  his  triumph,  and  thanksgiving  for  victory  follow  in 
natural  order;  the  whole,  however,  is  woven  more  closely  to- 
gether, so  that  the  transitions  of  thought  are  not  quite  so  distinct 
as  in  Part  I. 

Is  it  possible  to  take  one  further  step  and  discover  a  strophical 
analysis  which  will  coincide  with  the  logical  analysis  just  made? 
If  the  student  will  turn  to  the  second  section  of  Part  I  (vss.  4- 
19),  and  read  vss.  4,  5;  vs.  6;  vss.  9,  10;  vss.  11,  12;  vss.  13,  14 
(omitting  13c,  with  LXX,  as  an  accidental  repetition  of  vs.  12b); 
vs.  15;  vss.  16,  17;  and  vss.  18,  19,  he  will  find  that  the  subordi- 
nate divisions  of  the  section  naturally  make  little  stanzas  of  four 

44  In  the  case  of  Psalm  18  we  are  happily  in  possession  of  four  different  recen- 
sions, Psalm  18,  2  Sam.  22,  and  the  translation  of  both  in  the  LXX. 


90  HARVARD  THEOLOGICAL  REVIEW 

lines  each  (quatrains).  Only  at  vss.  7,  8,  is  this  regular  scheme 
interrupted.  In  these  verses  we  have  six  lines;  and  it  is  not  at 
all  impossible  that  originally  there  was  a  quatrain  here  also.45 
Again,  if  the  third  section  (vss.  20-26)  be  examined,  and  the 
reader  count  backward  from  the  very  perfect  final  quatrain  (vss. 
25,  26),  it  will  be  seen  that  vss.  23,  24,  and  21,  22,  will  also  give 
two  excellent  quatrains  (the  symmetry  is  still  more  evident  in 
the  Hebrew).  This,  to  be  sure,  leaves  vs.  20  hanging  in  the  air; 
but  vs.  20  is  almost  an  exact  duplicate  of  vs.  24,  and  may  safely 
be  rejected  altogether.  With  the  elimination  of  this  verse  the 
division  into  quatrains  in  vss.  4-26  becomes  the  most  obvious 
division;  and  when  it  is  once  observed,  it  is  also  exegetically 
illuminating.  The  thoughts  of  the  psalm  are  now  seen  to  be 
chiselled  out  with  great  care,  and  their  outlines  are  sharp  and 
distinct.  In  the  introductory  section  (vss.  1-3)  we  do  not  find 
the  quatrain  which  we  certainly  should  expect  there;  but  a  com- 
parison with  2  Sam.  22  2-4  again  show^s  that  the  text  of  the 
section  is  greatly  corrupted,  and  the  conjecture  is  entirely  proper 
that  it  originally  harmonized  strophically  with  what  follows.46  In 
passing,  the  completeness  of  Part  I,  taken  by  itself,  should  be 
noticed.  It  is  a  rounded  whole,  composed  with  much  artistic 
skill. 

Now  let  us  turn  to  Part  II  (vss.  32-50).  If  for  the  moment 
we  omit  vs.  32  from  our  reckoning  and  examine  vss.  33-42,  a 
beautiful  quatrain  division  can  be  recognized:  vss.  33-34,  God's 
training  of  the  feet  and  hands  (participial  construction  in  the 
Hebrew);  vss.  35,  36,  God's  further  equipment  of  the  hero  (second 
person;  vs.  35  is  admittedly  corrupted  and  one  line  must  be 
omitted,  cf .  2  Sam.  22  36) ;  vss.  37,  38,  the  warrior's  pursuit 
(first  person);  vss.  39,  40,  God's  assistance  in  the  pursuit  (second 
person  again;  vs.  40b  probably  to  be  emended  to  second  person 
with  LXX  [codices  A  and  B]  and  Jerome);    vss.  41,  42.     With 

45  In  the  Hebrew  there  is  metrical  difficulty  also  at  vss.  11,  12.  But  the  text 
at  this  point  is  notoriously  corrupt,  as  its  inherent  difficulties  and  a  comparison 
with  2  Sam.  22  12,  13,  testify. 

46  Whether  the  exact  wording  of  the  introduction  can  be  recovered  is  another 
question.  Emendations  thus  far  proposed  are  not  very  convincing.  Duhm's 
suggestion  that  there  were  originally  eight  lines  (two  quatrains)  here  would  seem 
to  be  in  the  right  direction. 


THE  PSALMS  91 

the  extra  line  omitted  at  vs.  35,  for  which  there  is  warrant  on 
other  grounds,  nothing  could  be  more  smooth,  regular,  and 
obvious  than  the  division  into  quatrains  in  vss.  33-42.  Yet  this 
arrangement  leaves  vs.  32  hanging  in  the  air  just  as  the  obvious 
arrangement  of  vss.  21-26  left  vs.  20.  But,  curiously  enough, 
just  as  vs.  20  was  seen  to  be  a  duplicate  of  vs.  24,  so  vs.  32a  is 
a  duplicate  of  vs.  39a.  Further,  the  thought  and  phraseology  of 
vs.  32b  are  in  well-marked  antithesis  to  vs.  30a,  that  is,  to  a  verse 
which  we  shall  find  to  be  a  very  suspicious  element  in  a  very  sus- 
picious passage.  There  is  therefore  good  critical  warrant  for 
suspecting  that  vs.  32,  at  least  in  its  present  form,  is  not  to  be 
taken  with  what  follows,  although  its  thought  is  in  keeping  with 
the  succeeding  verses. 

The  strophical  arrangement  of  vss.  43-50  presents  considerable 
difficulties,  which  cannot  be  overcome  without  resort  to  the  knife. 
The  verses  fall  into  two  clearly  marked  sections:  vss.  43-45  and 
vss.  46-50.  If  quatrains  are  found,  they  must  agree  with  this 
division  into  sections,  and  the  sections  themselves  be  kept 
strophically  distinct.  In  the  case  of  vss.  43-45,  verses  44  and 
45  give  a  good  quatrain;  while  vs.  43  contains  only  three  lines. 
Is  there  any  way  to  recover  the  missing  line?  To  answer,  we 
must  turn  to  the  other  section. 

In  vss.  46-50,  verses  46  and  47  will  give  a  quatrain.  Verse  49 
is  exegetically  suspicious,  for  its  spirit  is  wholly  inconsistent  with 
the  context.  In  the  context  the  speaker  is  distinctly  hostile  to 
the  nations.  Verse  49  is  animated  by  benevolence  toward  the 
nations.  Further,  verses  48  and  50  are  closely  connected  in 
the  Hebrew  by  their  grammatical  construction.  Those  two 
facts  suggest  that  vs.  49  is  an  interpolation.  But  even  if  verse 
49  is  eliminated,  six  lines  still  remain,  whereas  only  four  are  de- 
sired. Accordingly,  the  suggestion  has  been  made  that  the  extra 
line  at  vs.  48  (either  48b  or  48c)  should  be  transposed  to  a  place 
after  vs.  43a,  where  it  would  fit  admirably.  The  only  other 
line  that  can  be  lopped  off  is  vs.  50c;  and  there  is  justification  for 
rejecting  it,  for  this  clause  may  well  be  an  interpretative  gloss 
by  some  editor  who  thought  that  David  was  the  author  of  the 
psalm.     Critically,  this  clause  is  on  a  level  with  the  title. 

The  arrangement  here  suggested  for  vss.  43-50  is  of  course  con- 


92  HARVARD  THEOLOGICAL  REVIEW 

jectural.  Yet  each  step  of  the  process  has  its  own  good  reason, 
and  the  result  is  attractive,  even  if  not  entirely  convincing.  Part 
II  of  the  psalm  thus  falls  into  a  consistent  series  of  quatrains, 
which,  as  in  Part  I,  correspond  admirably  to  the  thought.  But 
we  cannot  call  Part  II  a  consistent  whole  like  Part  I.  It  can- 
not originally  have  begun  with  vs.  33.  The  introduction  must 
therefore  be  found  in  vss.  27-32,  or  else  we  must  suppose  it  to 
be  lost. 

This  leads  us  to  the  consideration  of  vss.  27-31  (32).  These 
verses  are  exegetically  unintelligible,  and  strophically  impossible. 
Verse  31  is  a  formulation  of  the  doctrine  of  monotheism  in  no 
organic  connection  with  the  context,  which,  whether  we  look  at 
Part  I  or  Part  II,  treats  of  God's  relation  to  the  singer,  not  of 
what  God  is  in  himself.  Verse  30  might  be  regarded  as  a  general- 
ization based  on  the  singer's  experience,  though  why  "the  word 
of  Jahveh"  should  be  emphasized  in  Psalm  18  does  not  appear, 
and  it  is  suspicious  that  clauses  b  and  c  are  also  found  in  Prov. 
30  5.  Moreover,  difficulty  has  always  been  found  with  the  text 
and  the  relation  of  vss.  27  and  28  (cf.  2  Sam.  22  28,  29).  Verse 
27  tells  what  God  does  for  an  afflicted  people;  vs.  28  what  he 
does  for  the  speaker.  In  what  relation  do  these  two  thoughts 
stand?  Again,  vss.  27,  28,  taken  together,  seem  to  be  an  appli- 
cation of  the  ethical  principles  embodied  in  vss.  21-26;  but  such 
an  application  is  entirely  unexpected  and  unnecessary,  since  vss. 
20-26,  as  we  have  seen,  fully  explain  what  goes  before.  Verses 
27,  28,  thus  form  a  sort  of  limping  appendix.  Of  all  these  verses 
only  vs.  29  seems  in  its  picturesque  concreteness  to  have  any 
connection  with  Part  II.  Strophically  also,  this  passage  is  hope- 
less. Verses  27,  28,  might  form  a  quatrain,  if  we  could  suppose 
that  the  speaker  identified  himself  with  the  afflicted  people; 
but  vs.  29  is  an  isolated  couplet,  vs.  30  a  three-line  stanza,  and 
vs.  31  a  tetrameter  couplet. 

What,  then,  is  the  significance  of  this  passage?  Observe  that 
vs.  27  unexpectedly  refers  to  "the  afflicted  people";  vs.  30  is 
also  a  generalization  (note  the  plural,  "all  them  that  take 
refuge");  and  at  vs.  31  we  actually  meet  with  the  first  person 
plural.  Light  at  once  dawns  upon  the  passage  if  it  is  interpreted 
as  a  bit  of  liturgical  padding  inserted  between  the  two  main  parts 


THE  PSALMS  93 

of  the  psalm.  But  when  this  is  once  recognized,  a  further  conse- 
quence is  seen  to  follow.  Since  the  introduction  to  Part  II  cannot 
be  found  in  vss.  27-31  (32),  it  must  be  lost,  and  vs.  29  is  probably 
a  fragment  of  it.  Further,  when  we  ask  ourselves  what  is  the 
relation  between  the  two  main  parts  of  the  psalm,  we  fail 
to  find  any.  The  last  part  is  usually  taken  as  the  interpretation 
of  the  first  part,  but  in  that  case  all  real  progress  and  movement 
must  be  denied  to  the  psalm.  We  have  seen  that  Part  I  is  a 
self-consistent  and  artistically  perfect  whole,  and  so  is  Part  II, 
with  the  exception  of  the  missing  introduction.  The  subject, 
spirit,  and  style  of  the  two  parts  are  entirely  different.  We  have, 
therefore,  two  originally  distinct  psalms,  and  the  liturgical  pas- 
sage vss.  27-31  was  inserted  when  they  were  united.47 

Let  us  now  examine  the  analysis  proposed  by  Briggs. 

He  also  recognizes  two  parts,  but  they  do  not  coincide  with 
the  two  outlined  above.  His  first  part  is  found  in  vss.  1-19,  his 
second  in  vss.  27-50.  The  intervening  verses,  20-27,  are  elimi- 
nated, being  themselves  broken  up  into  two  little  sections,  (a) 
vss.  20-23  (eight  lines),  a  legal  gloss  from  the  Persian  period; 
(b)  vss.  25-27  (eight  lines),  an  ethical  gloss  from  the  Greek  period. 
The  elimination  of  these  verses  wTould  appear  to  have  no  exegeti- 
cal  or  strophical  justification.  Exegetically,  they  attach  them- 
selves immediately  to  vs.  19b,  and  amplify  that  clause  in  a  way 
to  round  out  the  whole  poem.  Strophically,  Briggs's  view  re- 
quires that  vs.  24  go  with  what  follows  it,  and  vs.  27  with  what 
precedes  it.  Since  vss.  25,  26,  form  a  perfect  quatrain,  we  then 
have  to  suppose  that  it  was  preceded  and  followed  by  a  couplet, — 
a  supposition  which  we  have  seen  to  be  not  only  unnecessary 
but  improbable.48 

The  motive  for  the  elimination  of  these  verses  is  clear.  They 
are,  as  Briggs  says,  inconsistent  with  the  Davidic  authorship  of 
the  psalm,   hence  they  must   go   out.     But  another  conclusion 

47  There  have  been  many  attempts  to  explain  the  critical  difficulties  of  this 
psalm.  I  have  used  the  scaffolding  which  others  have  reared,  but  I  hope  to  have 
pointed  out  the  real  architectural  outlines  of  Ps.  18  somewhat  more  clearly  than 
has  previously  been  done. 

48  Why  Dr.  Briggs  should  characterize  one  gloss  as  legal  and  Persian,  and  the 
other  as  ethical  and  Greek,  when  both  begin  with  exactly  the  same  sentence  (vs. 
20  =  vs.  24),  is  hard  to  understand. 


94  HARVARD  THEOLOGICAL  REVIEW 

would  seem  to  be  the  more  natural  one.  Verses  20-27  are  inti- 
mately connected  with  what  precedes;  and  therefore  at  least  the 
first  part  of  the  psalm  cannot  be  by  David.  The  only  way  this 
argument  can  be  met  is  by  showing  that  vss.  1-19  are  so  clearly 
Davidic  that  the  rejection  of  vss.  20-26  becomes  a  necessity. 
Briggs  accordingly  argues  for  the  primitive  character  of  vss. 
1-19,  and  compares  the  theophany  in  these  verses  to  Judges  5. 
The  comparison  suggests  to  me  just  the  opposite  view.  Verses 
1-19  are  good  poetry,  but  only  in  the  sense  of  being  good  con- 
ventionalized poetry;  they  are  too  formally  correct  to  be  primi- 
tive; Part  I  is  in  no  sense  creative.  This,  however,  is  a  judg- 
ment of  taste,  and  as  such  may  or  may  not  have  argumentative 
value. 

Briggs  further  breaks  up  each  of  his  two  parts  into  three 
fourteen-line  (!)  strophes.  Without  following  this  analysis  into 
all  its  details,  some  of  its  more  conspicuous  infelicities  may  be 
pointed  out.  His  first  strophe  of  Part  I  combines  vss.  4-6  with 
vss.  1-3.  This  is  bad,  for  the  description  of  the  distress  is  then 
blended  with  the  initial  thanksgivings,  whereas  in  reality  there 
is  a  sharp  break  between  vss.  1-3  and  vss.  4  ff.  Again,  his  first 
strophe  of  Part  II  combines  vss.  28-32  with  vss.  33,  34.  This  is 
worse,  for  the  liturgical  generalizations  of  vss.  28-31  should  not 
be  combined  with  the  highly  concrete  and  intimate  descriptions 
which  begin  at  vs.  33.  But  even  in  the  form  which  Briggs  gives 
to  it  this  first  strophe  cannot  be  hewed  out  without  resort  to  the 
most  improbable  suppositions.  For  example,  vs.  30b  is  rejected 
while  30c  is  accepted.  Yet  both  clauses  are  found  together  in 
Prov.  30  5;  and  why  should  they  be  torn  apart  here?  So  vs.  31 
is  admittedly  a  tetrameter,  and  admittedly  monotheistic  and  as 
such  out  of  relation  with  the  context  and  inconsistent  with  Davidic 
authorship.  If  there  was  ever  a  good  case  for  a  gloss,  one  would 
think  it  would  be  found  here.  But  Briggs  emends  the  line  into 
a  trimeter,  and  turns  its  monotheism  into  henotheism  in  the 
couplet : 

For  who  is  a  God  (like)  Yahweh? 

And  who  is  a  Rock  (like)  our  God? 

It  is  difficult  to  follow  such  a  procedure.     Is  it  really  responsible 
criticism?     Furthermore,  out  of  vss.  43-50  Briggs  makes  one  of 


THE  PSALMS  95 

his  long  stanzas.  This  is  accomplished  by  the  elimination,  not 
only  of  vs.  49,  for  which  there  is  good  reason,  but  also  of  vss. 
44b  and  45.  On  the  other  hand,  vs.  50c  is  retained,  and  thus  the 
necessity  of  the  transposition  suggested  above  is  avoided.  The 
greater  simplicity  of  this  theory  is  an  advantage,  but  the  pro- 
priety of  eliminating  vss.  44b,  45,  rather  than  vs.  50c,  may  be 
doubted,  and  we  have  already  seen  that  the  division  into  fourteen- 
line  stanzas  has  broken  down  completely  at  two  crucial  points. 
Elsewhere  it  is  so  awkward  as  compared  with  the  division  into 
quatrains  that  no  adequate  justification  for  attempting  to  find 
a  fourteen-line  stanza  in  vss.  43-50  can  be  drawn  from  the  fact 
that  the  rest  of  the  psalm  is  so  divided.  To  the  present  reviewer 
Briggs's  poetical  analysis  of  Psalm  18  appears  to  have  no  exe- 
getical  basis  in  the  text,  but  on  the  contrary  is  opposed  to  all  the 
exegetical  probabilities  of  the  case.  The  attempt  to  save  the 
Davidic  authorship  by  the  supposition  of  glosses  and  accretions 
is  in  the  present  instance  a  failure.49 

It  is  a  pleasure  to  turn  from  Briggs's  analysis  of  Psalm  18  to 
his  restoration  of  Psalm  73.  Psalm  73  is  one  of  the  greatest  of 
the  whole  collection;  it  is  the  hymn  of  an  original  religious  genius. 
In  his  work  upon  this  psalm  we  see  Briggs's  poetical  analysis  at 
its  best,  and  we  cannot  be  too  grateful  to  him  for  the  thorough 
and  convincing  way  in  which  he  has  restored  to  us  this  master- 
piece in  all  its  rugged  grandeur. 

Psalm  73,  like  Psalm  18,  falls  into  two  parts:  Part  I,  vss.  1-12, 
the  recognition  by  the  poet  of  the  prosperity  of  the  wicked;  Part 
II,  vss.  13-28,  the  effect  of  this  recognition  upon  the  poet's  faith. 
Can  these  two  parts  again  be  broken  up  into  exegetically  justified 
strophical  divisions?  In  the  present  instance  this  question  is 
complicated  with  that  of  the  identification  of  the  speaker.  From 
vs.  1  it  might  be  argued  that  the  "I"  of  the  speaker  is  collective, 
and  refers  to  the  personified  congregation  of  the  godly.     On  the 

49  The  only  portion  of  the  psalm  which  might  lay  claim  to  Davidic  authorship 
is  Part  II.  Here  there  are  a  number  of  details  which  would  seem  to  fit  David,  or 
an  idealized  David,  better  than  any  other  character  in  Israel's  history,  but  here 
language  and  literary  connections  (compare  vss.  44,  45,  with  Micah  7  17,  especially 
in  the  peculiarities  of  the  Hebrew)  make  the  Davidic  authorship  very  dubious, 
even  if  the  authenticity  of  this  psalm  were  treated  solely  by  itself  and  apart  from 
considerations  of  the  growth  of  the  Psalter  as  a  whole. 


96  HARVARD  THEOLOGICAL  REVIEW 

other  hand,  an  examination  of  the  rest  of  the  psalm  would  suggest 
that  if  there  is  an  individual  speaker  anywhere  in  the  Psalter, 
it  is  here.  The  feeling  in  the  psalm  is  poignant  and  personal  to 
the  last  degree.  Briggs  rightly  feels  this,  and  accordingly  holds 
that  vs.  1  is  a  liturgical  gloss.  The  strophical  analysis  will  there- 
fore begin  with  vs.  2.  A  division  into  quatrains  can  be  readily 
followed  through  the  rest  of  Part  I  (vss.  2,  3;  vss.  4,  5;  vss.  6,  7; 
vss.  8,  9)  until  we  reach  vss.  10-12.  Here  there  are  two  lines 
too  many.  Verse  10  is  eliminated  by  Briggs,  and  on  good  grounds. 
The  verse  is  very  obscure  (it  would  seem  to  be  promissory); 
and  it  interrupts  the  connection,  since  vs.  11  naturally  tells  what 
the  wicked  men  of  vs.  9  say.  With  vss.  1  and  10  thus  elimi- 
nated on  entirely  intelligible  grounds,50  Part  I  is  seen  to  fall  into 
five  quatrains. 

In  Part  II  there  is  an  exegetical  difficulty.  The  "for"  at  vs. 
21  does  not  attach  itself  readily  to  what  immediately  precedes, 
and  would  seem  rather  to  refer  to  vss.  15,  16.  Thus  the  syntax 
suggests  that  vss.  17-20  may  be  an  interpolation.  The  verses 
contain  a  description  of  the  final  lot  of  the  wicked  in  terms  of  the 
theology  of  Job's  friends.  If  they  are  retained,  the  poet,  though 
cast  down  by  the  thought  of  the  present  prosperity  of  the  wicked, 
yet  takes  comfort  in  the  belief  that  they  will  ultimately  be  pun- 
ished. After  this  he  is  ready  to  cast  himself  upon  God,  vss. 
23  fl\  But  how  much  the  psalm  gains  in  power  when  vss.  17-20 
are  omitted!  The  psalmist  realizes  the  great  theological  diffi- 
culties which  the  prosperity  of  the  wicked  presents,  and  has  no 
solution  for  them.  All  he  can  do  is  to  make  the  great  venture  of 
faith,  and  unreservedly  trust  in  God.  How  the  wonderful  glow 
of  the  living  faith,  created  by  the  friction  of  doubt,  which  finds 
expression  in  vss.  23  ff.,  is  chilled  into  a  formal  dogma  by  vss. 
17-20!  But  if  these  verses  are  removed,  it  is  probable  that  vss. 
27,  28,  are  also  to  be  pruned  away.  In  them  the  same  doctrine 
emerges  as  in  vss.  17-20.  Also,  the  psalm  reaches  its  radiant 
climax  in  vss.  21-26:   vss.  27,  28,  are  only  embers.     It  is  prob- 

50  Briggs's  assumed  glosses  are  not  always  so  convincing.  When  he  says,  for 
example,  of  Ps.  59  14,  "A  prosaic  editor  made  the  couplet  into  a  prose  sentence," 
one  can  but  ask  what  the  editor's  object  was  in  doing  this.  This  sort  of  explana- 
tion that  does  not  explain  is  found  again  and  again. 


THE  PSALMS  97 

able  that  here  again  we  have  liturgical  accretions,  and  the  LXX 
adds  still  another  line,  "In  the  gates  of  the  Daughter  of  Zion," 
which  indicates  that  the  present  end  of  the  psalm,  like  the 
beginning  (vs.  1),  was  adapted  to  congregational  use.  If 
vss.  17-20  and  27,  28,  be  rejected,  Part  II  will  also  be  found 
to  have  exactly  five  quatrains  (vss.  13,  14;  vss.  15,  16;  vss.  21, 
22;  vss.  23,  24;  vss.  25,  26).  In  this  reconstruction  the  psalm 
stands  out  in  all  its  original  perfection  of  form  and  nobility  of 
thought. 

I  have  thought  it  more  instructive  to  show  the  reader  in  detail 
in  the  case  of  the  two  important  psalms  just  discussed  how 
Briggs  applies  his  metrical  and  strophical  theories  to  the  restora- 
tion of  the  psalms  rather  than  to  make  bare  reference  to  a  larger 
number  of  examples.  What  is  true  of  his  exposition  of  these 
psalms  is  true  for  the  others.  In  some  cases  he  takes  the  fortress, 
in  some  he  fails.  The  interesting  thing  to  observe  is  that  even 
an  approximately  correct  theory  of  Hebrew  metre  does  not  guar- 
antee convincing  results  in  criticism.  These  depend  after  all  very 
largely  upon  skilful  exegesis  and  textual  criticism.  Without 
these  a  metrical  theory  is  a  dangerous  tool,  as  apt  to  do  damage 
as  to  be  serviceable.  With  them  a  metrical  theory  can  often  be 
used  with  excellent  effect  when  other  tools  fail. 

It  will  be  interesting,  therefore,  to  look  at  Briggs's  treatment 
of  questions  which  are  fundamentally  exegetical  rather  than  his- 
torical or  critical.  For  this  purpose  I  have  selected  his  discus- 
sion of  certain  typical  "I-psalms,"  because,  while  criticism  often 
enters  into  this  discussion,  yet  in  the  main  the  definition  of  the 
"I"  is  a  distinctively  exegetical  question;  and  it  is  here  that  the 
exegetical  skill  of  a  commentator  can  most  readily  be  discerned. 

It  will  be  well  at  the  outset  to  give  a  brief  sketch  of  the  history 
of  this  problem,  and  to  indicate  its  signal  importance.  The 
tendency  to  explain  the  "I"  collectively  of  the  Jewish  people 
is  already  to  be  seen  in  the  Septuagint,  for  instance  in  the  title 
of  Psalm  56.  The  Targum  interprets  in  this  way  Psalms  23,  38, 
5Q,  and  88.  In  the  Talmud  the  problem  was  clearly  formulated: 
"R.  Eliezer  says:  David  spoke  all  the  psalms  in  his  own  interest; 
R.  Joshua  thinks :  In  the  interest  of  the  congregation.  The  Wise 
on  the  other  hand  explain:    He  spoke  some  in  his  own  interest, 


98  HARVARD  THEOLOGICAL  REVIEW 

some  in  the  interest  of  the  congregation."  61  The  church  fathers, 
notably  Theodore  of  Mopsuestia,  at  times  adopted  the  collec- 
tive theory,  and  the  great  Jewish  commentators  of  the  Middle 
Ages  maintained  it,  although  in  varying  degrees.  On  the  other 
hand,  Calvin,  an  exegete  greater  than  them  all,  interpreted  the 
"I"  individualistically,  no  doubt  because  of  his  hostility  to 
everything  that  savored  of  the  allegorical  method  of  exegesis. 
But  it  was  reserved  for  the  nineteenth  century  to  discuss  the 
problem  of  the  exact  identification  of  the  speaker  in  the  Psalms 
at  length  and  in  all  its  bearings.  Only  then  did  the  fundamental 
significance  of  the  problem  for  the  interpretation  of  the  Psalter 
fully  reveal  itself.  Passing  over  Olshausen's  commentary  on  the 
Psalms  (1853),  in  which  the  Psalter  was  regarded  as  the  song-book 
of  the  Second  Temple,  and  the  Psalms  treated  as  hymns  primarily 
designed  for  public  worship,  the  "I"  being  therefore  collective, 
attention  must  be  called  to  the  epoch-making  essay  of  Smend, 
"t)ber  das  Ich  in  den  Psalmen"  in  the  Zeitschrift  fur  alttestament- 
liche  Wissenschaft  (1888).  Since  the  appearance  of  this  paper, 
and  largely  because  of  it,  an  extensive  literature  on  the  subject 
has  developed.  The  monographs  of  Beer  (1894)  and  Coblenz 
(1897),  already  mentioned,  and  the  discussion  of  the  subject  in 
Cheyne's  Historical  Origin  and  Religious  Ideas  of  the  Psalter 
(1891),  are  among  the  main  contributions;  but  since  Smend's 
essay  every  Old  Testament  scholar  has  had  to  define  his  own 
attitude  toward  the  problem.  How  far-reaching  this  exegetical 
question  may  become  may  be  briefly  illustrated. 

(1)  Smend  argues  on  a  priori  grounds  that  the  "I"  of  the 
Psalter  must  be  collective,  because  the  Psalter  is  a  temple  hymn- 
book.  But  was  it  so?  At  least,  was  it  only  a  temple  hymn-book? 
Briggs  holds  that  it  was  used  in  the  synagogue  also;  Duhm  be- 
lieves that  it  was  designed  for  private  as  well  as  public  devotion. 
The  so-called  "anti-sacrificial  psalms"  certainly  do  not  favor 
the  idea  of  exclusive  use  in  the  temple  service.  The  identifica- 
tion of  the  "I"  is  thus  closely  related  to  the  question  of  the 

51  Cited  from  Coblenz,  tJber  das  betende  Ich  in  den  Psalmen,  p.  2.  [Coblenz 
has  not  quoted  the  whole  passage;  it  continues:  "Those  which  are  expressed  in 
the  singular  number  refer  to  himself,  those  in  the  plural  to  the  community" 
(Pesahim  117  a).— Ed.] 


THE  PSALMS  99 

purpose  of  the  Psalter,  and  so  we  are  led  into  a  new  series  of 
problems. 

(2)  In  by  far  the  largest  number  of  the  "I-psalms"  the  speaker 
is  surrounded  by  enemies.  Who  are  these  enemies?  Are  they 
private  enemies  of  a  private  individual,  or  public  enemies  of  a 
public  individual,  or  the  public  enemies,  whether  foreign  or  do- 
mestic, of  the  community?  Have  we,  that  is,  in  these  psalms 
reflections  of  private  quarrels,  or  of  wars,  or  of  party  contests? 
It  will  readily  be  seen  what  importance  the  answer  to  these  ques- 
tions may  have  for  the  dating  of  these  psalms. 

(3)  If  the  speaker  should  prove  to  be  a  collective  person,  the 
religion  of  the  speaker  is  the  religion  of  the  community.  Then, 
since  the  religion  of  the  Psalter  is  in  general  of  the  same  type 
throughout,  the  natural  inference  is  that  the  psalms  originated 
in  the  same  general  period,  and  a  community-religion  of  that 
type  can  only  be  understood  in  the  conditions  of  the  post-exilic 
period.  The  identification  of  the  "I"  is  thus  brought,  as  Smend 
expressly  urges,  into  direct  connection  with  the  dating  of  the 
psalms. 

(4)  The  ethics  of  the  Psalms  assumes  a  very  different  complexion 
according  as  the  "I"  is  interpreted  individualistically  or  col- 
lectively. The  difficulties  of  the  imprecatory  psalms,  for  ex- 
ample, are  relieved,  even  if  not  altogether  removed,  if  it  is  held 
that  the  curses  are  not  expressions  of  individual  hatred  against 
other  individuals  but  rather  of  community  feeling  against  other 
parties  or  nations.  Community  hatred  may  be  very  bitter, 
and  yet  be  coupled  at  times  with  generous  consideration  for 
individuals  of  the  opposite  party;  and  thus  the  fierceness  of 
these  psalms  may  not  always  represent  personal  hatred. 

(5)  The  same  question  enters  in  a  crucial  way  into  some  of 
our  judgments  upon  the  religious  significance  of  the  Psalter.  For 
example,  under  the  individualistic  interpretation  Ps.  16  10,  11, 
probably  refers  to  personal  immortality.  On  the  collective  in- 
terpretation it  refers  only  to  the  preservation  of  the  community. 
Again,  under  the  individualistic  interpretation,  the  sense  of  sin 
in  Psalm  51  would  be  a  sense  of  personal  sin,  and  would  approxi- 
mate to  the  Pauline  conception.  On  the  collective  theory  it 
would  be  the  confession  of  the  sin  of  the  community. 


100  HARVARD  THEOLOGICAL  REVIEW 

(6)  Finally,  the  interpretation  of  the  "I"  is  of  great  impor- 
tance for  the  proper  interpretation  of  the  Messianic  passages  in 
the  Psalter.  On  the  usual  patristic  theory  it  is  Christ  himself 
who  speaks  in  the  Psalms.  Thus  Psalm  22  becomes  a  direct 
description  by  Christ  himself  of  his  own  passion.  On  the  collec- 
tive theory  such  an  interpretation  of  Psalm  22  is  impossible. 
On  the  other  hand,  passages  which  would  have  no  messianic 
significance  under  the  individualistic  interpretation  may  acquire 
such  significance  under  the  collective  view.  The  confidence  ex- 
pressed in  Psalm  6,  if  the  speaker  is  Israel,  is  a  confidence  in  the 
messianic  future.  On  the  individualistic  interpretation  there  is 
no  messianic  reference  whatever  in  this  psalm. 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  problem  of  the  identification  of  the 
"I"  is  really  the  fundamental  exegetical  problem  in  the  great 
majority  of  the  Psalms.  Does  this  problem  stand  out  clearly 
in  our  present  commentary?  Far  from  it.  In  the  introduction 
no  allusion  is  made  to  it.  Even  in  the  section  on  Interpre- 
tation it  is  not  mentioned,  though  this  would  have  been  a  fit- 
ting place  for  some  information  upon  the  subject.  The  student 
stumbles  upon  the  problem  for  the  first  time  at  Psalm  5,  in 
which  the  "I"  is  interpreted  collectively  by  Briggs.  The  omis- 
sion of  any  preliminary  discussion  of  so  important  a  topic  puts 
the  student  at  a  serious  disadvantage.  Not  even  when  Briggs 
comes  to  the  detailed  exposition  of  the  "I-psalms"  in  the  com- 
mentary does  he  make  good  the  omission  by  enlarging  upon 
the  subject.  At  Psalm  5,  where  the  question  of  the  identification 
of  the  "I"  is  first  raised,  the  collective  theory  which  is  adopted 
is  not  proved,  but  is  simply  assumed.  Inasmuch  as  there  are  no 
very  clear  individualizing  traits  in  the  psalm  apart  from  the  use 
of  the  first  person,  this  might  be  allowed  to  pass,  but  when  we 
come  to  Psalm  6  and  its  kindred  "invalid  psalms"  (Psalms  38,  41, 
22,  30,  69,  88,  and  102)  we  are  confronted  with  an  exegetical 
problem  of  the  most  delicate  description.  In  the  interpretation 
of  these  psalms  failure  to  set  forth  the  reasons  for  the  theory 
adopted  is  fatal. 

Take  for  example  Psalm  6.  In  vss.  l-7a  the  speaker  describes 
himself  as  a  sick  man,  in  vs.  7  specifically  referring  to  his  bed, 
and  prays  that  God  may  deliver  him  from  his  sickness.     On  the 


THE   PSALMS  101 

other  hand,  in  vss.  7b-10  all  reference  to  sickness  is  dropped,  and 
enemies  take  the  place  of  sickness.  Further,  in  these  last  verses 
there  is  no  prayer  for  deliverance,  but  an  assurance  that  God  has 
already  heard  the  psalmist's  prayer  and  will  deliver  him  from  his 
enemies;  the  past  tenses  in  vss.  8,  9,  are  "perfects  of  assurance. " 
At  first  sight  it  seems  as  if  the  two  parts  could  have  nothing  to 
do  with  each  other  and  as  if  the  psalm  were  composite.  If  unity 
is  to  be  brought  into  the  psalm,  the  most  natural  method  is  to 
hold  that  the  sickness  described  in  the  first  part  is  a  figure  for 
the  persecution  implied  in  the  second  part.  Then  the  prayer  for 
deliverance  from  sickness  in  vss.  l-7a  becomes  the  prayer  which 
is  answered  in  vss.  7b-10,  where  the  figure  is  dropped,  and  unity 
of  subject  is  introduced  into  the  psalm.  But  if  the  "I"  is  an 
individual,  the  poet  has  in  the  first  part  needlessly  hidden  his 
meaning.  The  reference  certainly  seems  to  be  to  actual  sickness, 
and  the  sudden  change  in  the  last  part  to  enemies  is  unmediated 
and  confusing,  and  therefore  bad  from  a  literary  point  of  view. 
If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  "I"  is  collective,  it  would  be 
understood  at  once  that  sickness  is  only  a  figure,  and  hence  the 
transition  from  the  figure  in  vss.  l-7a  to  the  thing  figured  in  vss. 
7b-10  would  be  natural  and  easy. 

But  there  is  another  exegetical  difficulty  in  this  psalm.  How 
can  the  sudden  change  from  almost  despairing  entreaty  in  vss. 
l-7a  to  confidence  in  vss.  7b-10  be  accounted  for?  Why  is  the 
speaker  so  sure  that  God  will  stand  by  him  as  against  his  ene- 
mies? Why  is  he  so  certain  that  he  is  in  the  right?  On  the 
individualistic  theory  this  is  hard  to  explain.  It  is  usually  sup- 
posed that  in  the  very  expression  of  his  despair  the  speaker  in- 
duces a  reaction  and  finds  relief.  Hope  takes  the  place  of  agony. 
Of  course  this  is  psychologically  possible,  but  it  would  seem  far 
simpler  to  hold  to  the  collective  interpretation  of  the  "I."  In 
that  case  the  community  can  be  easily  thought  of  as  persuaded 
that  the  cause  of  the  religion  of  Jahveh  was  so  bound  up  in  its 
own  redemption  that  God  must  deliver  it  from  its  enemies.  Thus, 
under  the  collective  interpretation  of  the  "I,"  the  hope  in  vss. 
8-10  becomes  messianic. 

The  collective  interpretation  of  Psalm  6  is  strongly  confirmed 
when  we  turn  to  Psalm  38.     Here  we  meet  with  the  same  curious 


102  HARVARD  THEOLOGICAL  REVIEW 

difference  between  the  first  and  last  parts  of  the  psalm.  In 
vss.  1-11  the  speaker  describes  himself  as  sick,  but  in  vss.  12-22 
(except  vs.  17b)  only  persecution  by  enemies  is  referred  to.  In 
Psalm  38  there  is  not  the  change  from  despair  to  assurance  which 
is  found  in  Psalm  6,  but  there  are  several  new  and  important 
factors  which  bear  upon  the  interpretation  of  the  "I."  The 
description  of  the  sickness  is  given  in  such  varied  terms  that  it 
can  hardly  refer  to  a  real  sickness,  and  the  phraseology  of  verses 
3,  5,  and  7  seems  to  be  consciously  reminiscent  of  Isaiah  1  6, 
where  the  nation  is  described  as  sick.  Most  important  of  all, 
there  is  a  remarkable,  and  at  first  sight  unaccountable,  paradox 
in  the  psalm.  In  the  first  half  the  singer  acknowledges  his  guilt; 
it  is  because  of  his  sin  that  all  his  troubles  have  come  upon  him. 
But  in  the  second  half  (with  the  exception  of  vs.  18)  he  appears 
to  be  innocent  and  wrongfully  persecuted  by  his  enemies.  It  is 
hard  to  explain  this  paradox  if  the  speaker  is  an  individual,  but 
simple  if  the  "I"  is  collective.  A  community,  especially  if  it  be 
the  community  of  the  pious,  can  acknowledge  its  guilt,  since  it 
is  a  part  of  the  nation,  and  can  explain  its  sufferings  accordingly. 
But  as  against  the  nations  or  the  ungodly  among  the  Jews  them- 
selves the  congregation  of  the  pious  can  maintain  its  inno- 
cence. 

These,  in  outline,  are  the  arguments  which  have  been  advanced 
to  prove  a  collective  "I"  in  these  two  very  interesting,  but  at 
first  sight  perplexing,  psalms.  Does  Briggs  use  any  of  these  argu- 
ments or  contribute  anything  new  to  the  discussion?  On  Psalm 
6  he  merely  remarks  in  the  introductory  note,  "The  Ps.  was 
composed  for  the  congregation,  and  there  is  no  trace  in  it  of  the 
experience  of  an  individual."  In  the  exposition  proper  the  col- 
lective theory  is  assumed,  no  exegetical  argument  being  advanced 
for  it. 

No  reference  whatever  is  made  to  the  peculiar  relationship  of 
the  two  parts  of  the  psalm,  and  on  the  abrupt  change  from 
despair  to  assurance  at  vs.  8  we  have  the  merely  passing  note 
that  the  congregation's  "prayer  receives  its  answer  while  they 
are  making  it."  This  would  seem  to  imply  the  psychological 
explanation  of  the  transition  offered  by  the  advocates  of  the 
individualistic  interpretation, — an  explanation  which  is  unneces- 


THE  PSALMS  103 

sary  and  even  unnatural  on  the  collective  theory.  The  comment 
on  the  sympathetic  relationship  between  the  singer's  trouble 
and  his  aching  bones  also  agrees  with  Beer's  individualistic  in- 
terpretation of  the  psalm,  but  is  hardly  pertinent  on  the  col- 
lective view.  Again,  vs.  5  must  be  interpreted  figuratively  if 
the  "I"  is  collective,  but  no  explanation  of  its  figurative  sig- 
nificance is  forthcoming.  To  the  statement  that  there  is  no  trace 
of  the  experience  of  an  individual  in  Psalm  6  an  advocate  of  the 
opposite  view  might  urge  vs.  6;  so  Coblenz,  though  sympathetic 
toward  the  collective  interpretation  in  many  of  the  psalms,  holds 
to  the  individualistic  interpretation  of  Psalm  6  mainly  on  ac- 
count of  this  one  verse.  Briggs  ignores  the  difficulty  which 
it  presents  to  his  theory. 

On  Psalm  38,  again,  there  is  not  an  argument  advanced  for  the 
collective  theory.  On  the  contrary,  our  author  robs  himself  of 
a  very  strong  confirmatory  argument  furnished  by  this  psalm, 
namely  the  paradox  of  the  simultaneous  confession  of  sin  and  the 
assertion  of  innocence  by  the  speaker.  On  metrical  grounds 
vss.  2-5  and  vs.  18,  in  which  the  confession  of  sin  is  found,  are 
rejected  as  accretions,  and  the  paradox  is  thus  removed;  but  at 
the  same  time  the  interesting  argument  from  it  for  the  collective 
theory  is  lost.  On  vs.  18b  the  suggestion  is  made  that  a  later 
editor  inserted  this  verse,  "in  order  to  adapt  the  psalm  to  public 
worship."  But  if  the  "I"  is  collective,  the  psalm  must  havebeen 
originally  designed  for  public  worship;  the  comment  is  really 
inconsistent  with  the  view  taken  of  the  "I."  On  the  collective 
theory  some  attempt  should  be  made  to  identify  the  lovers  and 
friends  of  vs.  11  and  the  enemies  of  vs.  12,  but  the  comment 
on  vs.  11  is  simply  the  paraphrase  "those  upon  whom  I  could 
ordinarily  rely  for  sympathy  and  aid."52  Nothing  is  distinctly 
said  on  the  identification  of  the  enemies.     One  might  infer  from 

52  A  considerable  portion  of  the  exposition  printed  in  large  type  is  devoted  to 
just  such  tautological  paraphrases  of  the  Biblical  phraseology.  For  instance,  in 
the  present  psalm,  vs.  6,  "7  am  bent  ||  bowed  down],  by  a  weight  of  care,  anxiety, 
and  suffering,  and  this,  exceedingly,  to  the  utmost  degree  of  intensity";  vs.  8, 
"I  am  benumbed  and  crushed].  Strength  has  so  departed  from  him  that  he  has 
become,  as  it  were,  paralysed  and  incapable  of  effort";  vs.  10,  "  The  light  of  mine 
eyes],  the  light  that  illumines  the  eyes,  enabling  them  to  see  what  is  to  be  done, 
giving  confidence  and  courage." 


104  HARVARD  THEOLOGICAL  REVIEW 

the  time  at  which  the  psalm  is  dated  (in  the  restoration  before 
Nehemiah)  that  foreign  enemies  were  thought  of,  but  this  is  not 
certain.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  in  the  comment  on  Psalm  6  the 
enemies  are  explained  as  "workers  of  trouble  in  Israel  itself." 

In  Psalm  41  the  various  factors  that  entered  into  the  identi- 
fication of  the  "I"  in  Psalms  6  and  38  are  again  all  present,  but 
this  time  the  concreteness  of  expression  is  so  striking  that  the 
psalm  would  be  almost  unintelligible  did  we  not  have  the  two 
former  psalms  to  guide  us.  Sickness  and  persecution  are  again 
found,  but  intermingled  in  a  most  confusing  way.  The  enemies 
are  represented  as  gathered  around  the  bedside  of  the  dying 
man,  malignantly  slandering  him  and  devising  evil  against  him 
(vs.  8).  There  is  also  the  confession  of  guilt  (vs.  4)  and  the 
assertion  of  innocence  (vss.  11,  12)  already  found  in  Psalm  38, 
and  the  sudden  transition  from  despair  (vss.  1-9)  to  hope  (vss. 
10-12)  found  in  Psalm  6,  though  in  Psalm  41  an  additional  venge- 
ful cry  is  sent  up  to  the  Lord  for  recovery  in  order  that  the  speaker 
may  requite  his  enemies.  The  individualizing  traits  of  the  psalm 
are  especially  pronounced.  Smend  says  of  it,  "  One  can  learn  from 
this  song  how  far  the  personification  of  the  community  can  go." 
Duhm,  on  the  other  hand,  who  follows  the  individualistic  inter- 
pretation throughout,  draws  a  repulsive  picture  of  the  state  of 
society  reflected  by  this  psalm, — with  the  sick  man  on  his  death- 
bed, surrounded  by  hypocritical  friends  who,  like  Job's  comforters, 
argue  from  his  sufferings  to  his  wickedness  and,  dominated  by 
their  wretched  dogmas,  fairly  gloat  over  his  condition,  while  the 
dying  man  himself  with  his  last  breath  cries  to  God  for  recovery 
so  that  he  may  avenge  himself  upon  them.  It  is  a  lovely  death- 
bed scene  of  one  of  the  people  of  God! 

Surely  in  the  case  of  such  a  psalm  there  ought  to  be  some  dis- 
cussion of  the  identification  of  the  "I,"  with  a  defence  of  the  col- 
lective theory,  if  that  is  adopted.  But  as  usual  there  is  simply 
the  statement,  "The  Ps.  is  national  .  .  .  and  there  is  no  reference 
to  an  individual."  This  time  Briggs  seems  to  have  felt  that  some 
explanation  of  vs.  9  on  the  collective  theory  is  due.  It  is  in- 
terpreted (in  all  probability  correctly)  of  "nations  in  covenant, 
who  have  treacherously  broken  covenant  and  become  bitter 
enemies,"  but  unfortunately  there  is  no  reference  to  Obadiah  7 


THE  PSALMS  105 

which  supports  the  nationalistic  interpretation,  at  least  if  the 
text  of  that  passage  can  be  trusted.53  As  in  Psalm  38,  the  clause 
in  which  sin  is  confessed  (vs.  4b)  is  rejected.  It  may  be  noted 
also  that  vs.  10b  is  dropped  on  metrical  grounds. 

An  equal  obliviousness  to  the  need  of  any  exegetical  defence  of 
the  collective  theory  of  the  "I"  is  found  in  the  exposition  of  Psalm 
30,  though  here  Sheol  in  verse  3,  cf.  verse  9,  is  interpreted  of 
national  exile,  with  reference  to  Ezekiel  37.  This  is  the  explana- 
tion which  we  looked  for  at  the  parallel  passage  Psalm  6  5.  It 
was  just  as  much  needed  there,  but  was  not  given. 

On  Psalm  88  there  is  a  somewhat  clearer  exposition  of  the  details 
of  the  psalm  on  the  basis  of  the  collective  theory,  and  at  vs.  15 
there  is  the  first  exegetical  argument  for  the  collective  "I"  to  be 
met  with  anywhere  in  the  comment  on  the  five  psalms  thus  far 
reviewed.  It  is  urged  that  the  reference  to  "youth"  in  this  verse 
cannot  be  satisfactorily  explained  if  the  "I"  is  an  individual.54 

In  the  case  of  Psalms  22,  69,  and  102  the  identification  of  the 
speaker  is  complicated  by  the  serious  critical  problem  of  the 
integrity  of  these  psalms.  Psalm  69  I  shall  pass  by,  since  the 
analysis  of  this  psalm,  both  logically  and  poetically,  is  too  un- 
certain to  allow  of  a  clear  formulation  of  our  problem.  Attention 
need  only  be  called  to  the  fact  that  it  is  analyzed  by  Briggs 
into  two  distinct  psalms,  in  one  of  which  the  "I"  seems  to  be  an 
individual  prophet,  and  in  the  other  the  ideal  community.  The 
grounds  for  the  analysis  are  metrical,  and  of  doubtful  cogency. 
Duhm,  for  example,  has  a  different  metrical  theory  of  the  psalm. 
Briggs  makes  no  attempt  to  explain  why  the  "I"  is  interpreted 
differently  in  the  two  parts  which  he  thinks  he  can  distinguish 
in  the  psalm. 

53  The  crucial  objection  to  the  collective  interpretation  of  Psalm  41  is  found 
in  vss.  1-3,  a  didactic  observation  and  strongly  individualizing.  Briggs  notes 
that  these  verses  are  "in  a  strange  sort  of  isolation";  he  adopts  a  new  translation 
in  order  to  connect  them  with  what  follows,  but  the  translation  is  more  than  doubt- 
ful. If  the  collective  theory  is  adopted,  it  is  probable  that  vss.  1-3  will  have  to 
be  eliminated.  It  is  difficult  to  connect  them  with  the  rest  of  the  psalm,  even 
on  the  individualistic  interpretation. 

54  The  only  meaning  it  could  possibly  have  on  the  individualistic  interpretation 
would  be  that  the  speaker  had  been  all  his  life  a  chronic  invalid.  Duhm  seeks 
by  emendation  to  avoid  this  objection  to  the  individualistic  interpretation. 


106  HARVARD   THEOLOGICAL  REVIEW 

In  the  case  of  Psalms  22  and  102  the  bearing  of  the  critical 
problem  upon  the  identification  of  the  "I"  can  be  much  more 
readily  grasped  by  the  reader.  Psalm  22  1-21  contrasts  strik- 
ingly with  vss.  22-31,  and  even  the  Revised  Version  separates 
the  two  parts  by  a  space.  On  the  supposition  of  the  unity  of 
the  psalm,  the  praise  for  the  deliverance  of  the  afflicted  in  vss. 
22-31  can  be  naturally  interpreted  only  as  praise  for  the  deliver- 
ance of  the  afflicted  speaker  in  vss.  1-21.  Now  this  deliverance 
not  only  has  a  national  significance  (vs.  23),  but  has  a  world-wide 
application  (vs.  27),  in  fact  a  messianic  significance  in  the  largest 
sense.  The  nations  are  to  be  converted  to  Jahveh  because  of 
this  deliverance,  and  its  effects  will  be  felt  upon  nations  yet 
unborn,  vss.  27-31.  If  we  allow  vss.  22-31  to  govern  our  theory 
of  the  personality  of  the  speaker  in  the  first  part  of  the  psalm, 
he  must  be  either  a  most  extraordinary  individual,  who  yet  can- 
not be  identified  with  any  person  known  in  Jewish  history,  or  he 
is  the  personified  community.55  The  advocates  of  the  collective 
"I"  urge  vss.  22-31  as  one  of  the  strongest  arguments  in  support 
of  their  theory.  This  is  said  to  be  corroborated  by  the  fact  that 
in  vs.  4  the  personification  is  dropped  for  a  moment  and  the 
actual  "we"  of  the  congregation  appears  ("Our  fathers  trusted 
in  thee"),  and  by  the  further  fact  that  the  present  condition  of 
the  "I"  in  vs.  6  (very  emphatic  in  the  Hebrew)  seems  to  contrast 
with  the  previous  condition  of  the  nation  in  vss.  4,  5,  which  would 
be  unnatural  except  on  the  collective  theory.  It  might  be  thought 
that  at  vss.  22  and  25  the  speaker  separates  himself  from  the 
community  and  is  accordingly  an  individual.  There  is  a  diffi- 
culty here  for  the  collective  interpretation,  but  it  is  by  no  means 
fatal.  We  may  explain  it  with  Smend  by  the  theory  that  "Israel 
is  distinct  from  the  Israelites,  cf.  Hosea  1  and  2,"  or  we  may 
suppose  with  Coblenz  that  in  verses  22  and  25  the  individual 
members  of  the  congregation  are  speaking. 

In  our  commentary  the  collective  theory  of  the  speaker  seems  to 
be  adopted,  but  the  unity  of  the  psalm  is  denied,  and  of  the  last 
part  only  verses  22  and  25  are  admitted  to  belong  to  the  origi- 
nal.    Herein  is  a  marvellous  thing.     That  part  of  the  psalm  which 

55  Even  Calvin  did  not  venture  to  identify  the  speaker  in  this  psalm  directly 
with  Christ. 


THE  PSALMS  107 

can  be  urged  most  forcibly  for  the  collective  theory  is  rejected, 
but  those  verses  which  bear  most  strongly  against  the  theory  are 
retained.  Yet  the  collective  theory  is  adopted  without  one  word 
of  explanation  as  to  the  bearing  of  either  of  these  points  upon  it. 
In  this  psalm,  however,  we  meet  with  the  second  instance  thus 
far  observed  of  an  exegetical  argument  for  the  collective  theory 
of  the  "I."  In  the  introduction  to  the  psalm  it  is  said  that  "the 
description  is  too  varied  for  any  individual  experience."  But  no 
inference  as  to  the  nature  of  the  "I"  is  drawn  from  the  first 
person  plural  in  vss.  4,  5.56 

Finally,  with  regard  to  Psalm  102,  if  its  unity  is  accepted,  the 
case  for  the  collective  "I"  may  be  considered  to  be  proved  be- 
yond peradventure.  In  vss.  13  ff.  Zion  stands  out  in  her  own 
proper  person.  If  there  is  any  connection  at  all  between  these 
verses  and  what  has  gone  before,  the  "I"  of  the  first  part  of 
the  psalm  must  be  collective.  As  for  Psalm  22,  the  collective 
theory  is  maintained  ("the  author  wrote  in  the  person  of  af- 
flicted Israel"),  but  the  unity  of  the  psalm,  which  is  the  strong- 
est support  of  the  theory,  is  denied.  It  must  be  confessed  that 
the  argument  for  the  composite  character  of  Psalm  102  is  particu- 
larly strong,  but  the  point  is  that  our  author  seems  quite  oblivi- 
ous of  the  bearing  of  the  critical  question  upon  the  exegesis. 

The  present  reviewer  cannot  pretend  to  have  examined  the 
treatment  accorded  to  all  the  "I-psalms"  in  the  present  com- 
mentary. But  a  typical  group  of  them  has  been  selected  in  which 
the  exegetical  problem  of  the  identification  of  the  "I"  is  pe- 
culiarly acute  and  demands  at  least  an  attempt  at  solution. 
For  not  one  of  these  psalms  is  there  anything  that  can  be  called 
a  discussion  of  the  question.  Only  two  exegetical  arguments  in 
favor  of  the  collective   "I"  have  been  found  in  the  sixty-two 

56  The  unity  of  Psalm  22  is  a  fairly  debatable  question.  The  transition  from 
the  first  part  to  the  second  is  certainly  abrupt.  Yet  it  has  its  analogy  in  Psalm  6, 
the  integrity  of  which  is  universally  admitted.  Further,  the  relation  of  the  last 
part  to  the  first  corresponds  so  strikingly  with  Isa.  53  (cf .  Beer's  illuminating  ex- 
position) that  it  seems  hardly  due  to  chance  compilation.  But  even  if  the  original 
unity  of  the  psalm  is  denied,  the  present  combination  of  the  two  parts  can  hardly 
have  been  made  on  any  other  than  a  collective  theory  of  the  "I"  (unless  we  hold 
that  it  is  due  simply  to  accident),  and  hence  it  may  be  argued  that  at  the  time  of 
the  redaction  of  this  psalm  the  collective  theory  of  the  "I"  was  prevalent  (a  point 
not  noticed  by  Briggs). 


108  HARVARD  THEOLOGICAL  REVIEW 

pages  devoted  to  the  exposition  of  these  psalms.  The  theory  is 
regularly  assumed,  but  the  arguments  for  it  are  either  ignored 
or  are  actually  invalidated,  as  by  the  critical  theories  adopted 
in  the  case  of  Psalms  22,  69,  and  102.  The  difficulties  in  the  way 
of  the  theory,  especially  those  presented  by  the  detailed  personifica- 
tions which  must  be  assumed,  are  largely  passed  over  without 
a  word  of  explanation.  This  means  that  the  really  vital  problems 
in  the  interpretation  of  these  interesting  and  important  psalms 
are  scarcely  touched,  for  they  can  only  be  revealed  in  a  discussion 
of  the  identification  of  the  "I."57 

It  is  unnecessary  to  sum  up  the  general  results  of  our  review. 
The  dissent  from  the  methods  followed  in  this  commentary  may 
seem  to  some  to  have  been  emphasized  too  strongly;  yet  I  trust 
that  the  discussion  has  made  it  evident  that  the  dissent  is  an 
honest  and  not  a  captious  one.  Of  the  four  topics  which  have 
been  reviewed,  the  interest  and  permanent  value  of  the  com- 
mentary, apart  from  the  vast  collection  of  material,  word-studies, 
and  discussions  of  the  literary  relationships  of  the  psalms,  lie 
in  the  treatment  of  the  poetical  form  of  the  psalms.  The  establish- 
ment of  the  original  poetic  forms  of  the  psalms  is  the  one  domi- 
nant interest  of  the  commentary.  Here  many  valuable  sugges- 
tions have  undoubtedly  been  made  of  which  the  professional 
student  of  the  future  will  make  grateful  use.     But  in  the  nature 

57  In  the  above  discussion  as  to  the  nature  of  the  speaker  no  notice  has  been 
taken  of  the  light  which  the  Babylonian  penitential  psalms  may  throw  upon  the 
problem.  These  psalms  would  seem  to  have  been  originally  individualistic,  though 
afterwards  adapted  to  liturgical  purposes.  In  many  respects  they  are  very  sim- 
ilar to  the  Hebrew  "invalid  psalms"  (compare  the  end  of  the  truly  remarkable 
psalm  cited  in  Jeremias,  "Das  Alte  Testament  im  Lichte  des  alten  Orients," 
pp.  210  fl\,  with  Ps.  41),  and  might  suggest  that  after  all  the  "I"  in  the  latter 
psalms  was  originally  individualistic,  though  its  exegetical  argument  is  strongly 
in  favor  of  a  collective  theory.  Briggs  does  not  refer  to  the  Babylonian  analogies  in 
his  comments  on  the  psalms  which  have  been  examined  above.  In  general,  the 
analogies  between  the  Hebrew  Psalter  and  other  ancient  Oriental  literature  do  not 
seem  greatly  to  interest  him.  He  does  not  once  mention  the  great  hymn  of  Chue- 
naten  in  his  exposition  of  Ps.  104.  He  alludes  to  the  Babylonian  Tiamat-myth 
in  connection  with  Ps.  89  10  ff.,  but  unfortunately  explains  the  very  similar  passage 
Ps.  74  12  ff.  of  the  redemption  from  Egypt,  whereas  it  almost  certainly  refers 
to  the  creation-myth.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  interesting  to  notice  that  Briggs 
inclines  to  an  original  mythological  background  for  Ps.  19.  In  this  view  he  agrees 
with  Gunkel,  though  the  two  scholars  arrived  at  it  quite  independently  of  one 
another. 


THE  PSALMS  109 

of  the  case  those  results  are  not  exact  or  final,  but  are  necessarily 
conjectural.  The  lay  reader  or  minister  or  theological  student 
who  may  use  this  book  must  constantly  keep  in  mind  the  tentative 
nature  of  the  poetical  analysis,  and  always  test  the  reconstruction 
by  the  requirements  of  exegesis.  Unfortunately,  on  the  side  of 
exegesis  the  commentary  does  not  inspire  confidence. 


110 


HARVARD  THEOLOGICAL  REVIEW 


MEDIAEVAL  GERMAN  MYSTICISM 
KUNO  FRANCKE 

Harvard  University 

The  German  mysticism  of  the  fourteenth  century  was  one  of 
the  most  remarkable  manifestations  of  that  individualistic  trend 
of  thought  and  feeling  which  set  in  during  the  thirteenth  century 
with  the  height  of  chivalric  culture,  developed  under  the  influ- 
ence of  the  growth  of  civic  independence  in  the  great  municipal 
republics,  and  finally,  in  the  religious  Reformation  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  overturned  the  whole  corporate  system  of  the  mediaeval 
church  and  state. 

The  fundamental  thought  of  the  German  mystics  of  the  four- 
teenth century  was  nothing  new.  It  was  a  revived  and  chris- 
tianized Neoplatonism.  Throughout  the  Middle  Ages  more 
subtle  thinkers  had  been  fascinated  by  the  neoplatonic  concep- 
tion, that  the  world  is  an  incessant  and  gradual  differentiation 
of  the  originally  undivided  and  undifferentiated  Divine;  that 
man,  however,  and  man  alone,  possesses  the  power  by  a  free 
act  of  will  to  reverse  this  incessant  process  of  differentiation, 
and  thus  to  return  from  the  diaspora  of  manifold  phenomena 
into  the  oneness  of  the  undivided  Divine.  The  so-called  Diony- 
sius  Areopagita,  Scotus  Erigena,  Hugo  and  Richard  of  St.  Victor, 
Bernard  of  Clairvaux — these  all  see  the  essential  goal  of  human 
life  in  this  return  from  the  many  into  the  one;  they  all  love  to 
dwell  on  the  different  stages  of  inner  concentration  by  which  man 
approaches  this  goal;  they  all  praise  enthusiastically  the  state 
of  highest  self-surrender  where  man  is  completely  welded  into 
one  with  the  Divine — as  the  waterdrop  is  resolved  into  wine; 
or  as  iron,  melting  in  the  fire,  seems  to  become  fire,  or  as  the  air, 
illuminated  by  the  sun,  seems  itself  to  become  sunlight.  It  is, 
however,  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  this  ideal  of  complete  self- 
surrender  of  the  individual  to  the  infinite  has  seldom  produced 
such  a  variety  of  individual  life  as  in  the  German  mystics  of  the 
fourteenth  century.     Three  of  the  most  pronounced  personalities 


